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NAPOLEON'S FLIGHT THROUGH THE STREETS OF LEIPSIC, AFTER 
THE BATTLE. (A. Braun.] 



FAMOUS AND DECISIVE 

Battles of the World 



THE ESSENCE OF HISTORY. 



FROM WATERLOO, A. D., 1815 
TO PORT ARTHUR, 1905 

Including the Great Battles o? 

THE JAPAN-RUSSIA WAR 



WITH PLANS OF BATTLEFIELDS, 
MAPS AND ENGRAVINGS 



BY 



CHARLES KING, Brigadier-General, U. S. A. 

Author of ''Fort Frayne," "A West Point Parallel, Etc. 



P. W. ZIEGLER CO- 
PHILADELPHIA 



LIBRARY jf 30NGSESS 
fwo Copiei) rfetciveu 

JUN 7 J 905 

CLASS C- \Ac. .Mo; 
COHY B. 



Copyright, 1905, 

by 

D. W. CASKEY, Jr. 



t- 



INTRODUCTORY. 

A new epoch for Europe began at Waterloo. Here culminated 
the career of the great Napoleon. The long era of turbulence that 
had played havoc with the map of a continent was followed by 
a period deeply significant for its rearrangement of the relations 
of European nations. To the historian, to the romancer, to the 
artist, this struggle and its results have been and are an increas- 
ing well-spring of inspiration. The name is household property 
in many lands and inspires the imagination more immediately, 
more efifectively than any three syllables extant. The history of 
what may be called the "most modern times" begins with those 
June da}s of 1815, close to a century ago, and hence this volume, 
beginning its story with the events of those days, is a portrayal 
of events most nearly of concern to-day. This century contributed 
a noble array of great military struggles, pregnant of far-reaching 
results, not only to Europe but to America as well. It is the 
scope of this volume to lay these in chronological order before the 
reader. The story of battle on battle is told with historical fidelity, 
with graphic brilliancy, in the language of a master in the art of 
war who, from all the wealth of detail, has skilfully chosen the 
essential facts and has woven these into a narrative of absorbing 
interest that must necessarily appeal to the lover of the glamour 
of battle. That author is General Charles King, U. S. A. Himself 
a graduate of West Point, a soldier of long experience, theoreti- 
cal and practical in the art of war, he has entered into the very 
spirit of the great chieftains whose valorous deeds he has re- 
corded. 

From Waterloo, the scene of action is moved to the American 
Continent. The story of the Texan Revolution, of The Alamo, is 
told efifectively and from that, with little change of scene, the author 
tells in his unrivalled fashion of the spectacular struggles of the 
Mexican War. Then the famous battles of the American Civil 
War are spread like a panorama before the reader's eye. When 
the very names of Malvern Hill, Manassas, Chancellorsville, Get- 
tysburg and Five Forks cease to thrill American hearts, the days 
of the Republic will be numbered. But war has even a deeper 
meaning since the memorable days of the Spanish- American War. 
History making followed rapidly in the train of that lamentable 
event in the harbor of Havana, February 15, 1898 — the destruction 
5 



g INTRODUCTORY. 

of the Maine. Fraught with mighty consequences to America 
were all of the swift succeeding events of the naval and military 
campaigns that followed. No American can afford to do less 
than learn the story by heart. This volume proclaims the heroic 
deeds of the men who, through heat and grime of battle, swept 
Spain from the Western Hemisphere and added a new and bril- 
liant chapter to the annals of American valor. 

The opening chapters of a vast new volume of military history 
have been written in the Far East. Japan and Russian have been 
engaged in a bloodier war than any since our civil strife, with 
battles exceeding even the memorable conflicts of that period in 
the numbers engaged and in the ferocity of the combatants. The 
student of world history must know of Liaoyang, of the Shakhe 
River, of the siege of Port Arthur. The taking of Russia's "Gib- 
raltar of the East" goes into history as a feat of arms without a 
peer. Modern times and antiquity have been searched in vain for 
a parallel. The details of these great conflicts have been woven into 
this volume of the essence of history and bring the marvelous, 
fascinating story up to the present. 

The volume is profusely illustrated with the masterpieces of a 
score of famous depicters of martial events. These, with maps 
of countries, plans of battlefields, equip the reader for intelligent, 
enjoyable reading. 

The Publishers. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page 

Battlefield of Waterloo i8 

Sir Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington 19 

The Return from Elba 26 

The Retreat from Moscow 35 

Napoleon's Flight Through the Streets of Leipsic, After the Bat- 
tle 42 

Waterloo. The Sunken Road of Ohain 49 

Flight of Napoleon After Waterloo 58 

The Last Days of Napoleon 62 

Sam. Houston 64 

The Fall of the Alamo 70 

General Santa Anna 72 

Castle of Chapultepec 78 

The Storming of Chapultepec 79 

Balaclava. Charge of the Light Brigade 85 

Alexander IL, Czar of Russia, 1877 93 

Battlefield of Balaclava loi 

Battle of Malvern Hill. Lee's Attack 118 

Battlefield of Malvern Hill 123 

Battlefield of Manassas 152 

Battle of Chancellorsville. Jackson's Attack 154 

General Robert E. Lee 160 

General Thomas J. Jackson 160 

Battlefield of Chancellorsville 163 

Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg 169 

General George G. Meade 175 

General George H. Thomas 175 

Gettysburg and Adjacent Country 179 

The Soldier's Dream 198 

General U. S. Grant 207 

Battlefield of Nashville 233 

Surrender of Lee at Appomattox 235 

Field of the Virginia Campaign of 1865 247 

General Philip H. Sheridan 270 

General William T. Sherman 270 

A. Lincoln 275 

Charles Louis Napoleon 281 

Arms and Accoutrements of the Nineteenth Century 285 

7 



6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm 293 

Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern 297 

Count Von Moltke 309 

Gravelotte. The Charge of the French Curassiers 317 

Marshal Macmahon, Duke of Magenta 323 

Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia 329 

Cossacks on a March 336 

Abdul Hamid, Sultan of Turkey 345 

Japanese Infantry Attacking a Chinese Position 2>7i 

The Japanese at Port Arthur 384 

The Assault of San Juan Hill 406 

San Juan. Charge of the Regulars 423 

Map of Santiago and Vicinity 412 

Arms and Ammunition, 1898 415 

Uniforms, United States Service 439 

General Jose Toral y Velasquez 449 

In the Russian Trenches 452 

Russians Recapturing Lost Guns 457 

Japanese Troops Caught in Barbed Wire Entanglement 462 

A Last Gallant Stand of Russian Gunners 468 

Fight in Street of Lin-Shin- Pu 477 

Japanese Scaling Fort at Port Arthur 489 

Hauling Guns up Captured Hill at Port Arthur 500 



CONTENTS. 

WATERLOO, 1815 A. D. 

Napoleon at the zenith of his power in the winter of 1808 — Having humbleA 
Austria he resolves to invade Russia, against the advice of all thioking coun- 
selors — The retreat from Moscow the story of his downfall — The nations of 
Europe make common cause against him — The allies win Leipsic — " The 
Battle of the Nations " — Napoleon an exile in Elba — Europe again thunder- 
struck — " The Man of Destiny " reappears at the head of the " Old Guard" 
— England heads the new alliance against him — Description of the various 
armies put into the field — Anxiety of the allied leaders — Napoleon in Bel- 
gium — H'is plans for crushing the allies — Ill-success of some of them — 
Ligny and Quatre Bras — Concentrating on Waterloo — A look at the field — 
Strength of the rival armies — Napoleon eager for battle — Anxiety concerning 
Grouchy — Disposition of Wellington's forces — The French order of battle 
— Napoleon's last review — Hougomont invested — The emperor's old tactics 
— Wellington inquiring for Picton's division — Terrible fighting everywhere — 
Death of Picton — The French on Mont St. Jean — Brilliant work of the 
Highlanders and Inniskillings — "Where is Grouchy?" — Ineffectual assault 
on Hougomont — Bliicher appears on the French right at seven P. M. — Last 
salute of the "Old Guard" — The French army cut to pieces — Fearful losses 
on both sides — Napoleon a prisoner on St. Helena 17-62 

THE ALAMO, 1836 A. D. 

The Texan Revolution — Disheartened leaders — Old Ben Milam — San An- 
tonio de Bexar attacked — Street fighting — Death of Colonel Milam — " The 
Priest's House " — General Cos capitulates — Humane Terms — Tiie new 
Republic — Approach of the Mexican Army — San Antonio garrisoned — 
Travis — Bowie — Crockett — The Alamo — Its defences — Santa Anna reaches 
San Antonio — The Blood-Red Flag — Travis appeals to Fannin — Travis' 
letter — Santa Anna invests The Alamo — Skirmishes — Arrival of Captain 
Smith — Travis' force — A council of war — Assault of The Alamo — Second 
assault — The third attempt — The Heroes cut down — Deaths of the leaders 
— No surrender — No retreat — The sacrifice for country — Mexican brutality 
— The survivors 65-72 

CHAPULTEPEC, 1847 A. D. 
An ancient Aztec city — The capital of the Republic — A garden spot — Actions 
previous to Vera Cruz — Bombardment of Vera Cruz — Fall of the city — 
Cerro Gordo — The spoils of two months — Actions after Cerro Gordo — 
Chapultepec in the way — Description of the Fortress — Barring the road to 
the capital — The last link — The prelude to the assault — The wild onrush — 
The Mexican resistance — The broken acclivity — Driving back the enemy — ■ 
Over the parapet — Planting the colors — The valiant dead — Quitman's as- 
sault — Across the meadow — The coveted wall — Hand to hand conflicts — 
Resistance in vain — The prisoners — Casey wounded — Volunteers vie with 
Regulars — With colors mingled — The death-strewn gullies — General 
I'illow on the Mexican strength — \Vorth at San Cosme — Quitman at Beien 

(9) 



10 CONTENTS. 

— Santa Anna abandons the city — Childs besieged in Puebia — Lane's oper- 
ations — Affairs in California and New Mexico — The treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo — How American valor was illustrated 73-78 

BALACLAVA, 1854 A. D. 

" The Charge of the Light Brigade " — The many lessons of this war — Its 
origin — How England and France came to take a hand in it — The first time 
in 500 years that they fight side by side — The Crimea invaded — Coniposiiion 
of the English invading force — A look at their leaders — The policy that 
dictated their selection — Russian cavalry assault — The Turks driven out of 
their works in great confusion — Pomposity and stupidity of Lord Cardigan — 
Charge of the "Heavy Brigade" — Blundering of the Russian general — 
Brilliant individual exploits — Alexander Eliot — Insufferable arrogance of 
Lord Lucan — Raglan's famous order — Misunderstandings concerning it — 
Enthusiasm of Captain Nolan — The eyes of five nations on the " Six 
Hundred " — Darting into death, utterly without support — Captain Nolan the 
first victim — The Light Brigade forced to turn back — Two-thirds of 
them killed and wounded — "It was a mad-brained trick" — EfT(jrts in 
England to shield Lucan and Cardigan — "A peer of England cannot blun- 
der" — Kinglake's conscientious history— Admiring Frenchmen say of the 
charge : " It is magnificent ; but it is not war " 81-1 16 

MALVERN HILL, 1862 A. D. 

Federal dash at Mechanicsville — On to Richmond — McClellan's promise — 
Anxious delays— The patient President — Emory's mud march — Martin- 
dale's gallant fight — McClellan's studied annoyances — Seven Pines — Fair 
Oaks — " Masterful inactivity " — Stuart's raid — Hooker at Oak Grove — 
Battle of Mechanicsville — McClellan retreats — Gaine's Mills — A Confeder- 
ate victory — Lee seeks McClellan — McClellan's objective — Malvern Hills 
— Lee's pursuit — Jackson at bay — Glendale — Longstreet fights McCall — 
Cooper and Randall lose their guns — McClellan on the Galena — The battle 
fought by his subordinates — Defences of Malvern Hill — McClellan still on 
the gun-boat — Lee attacks — The Confederates beaten back — Porter re- 
pulses Magruder and Huger — Up to the muzzles — The Union line un- 
broken — Tier upon tier of guns— Lee desperate and reckless — The second 
attack— The merciless fire— The maelstrom of death— The gun-boats take a 
hand — Fleeing from the Golgotha — Union forces victorious — Lee's army in 
confusion — McClellan's losses — The campaign ended — Harrison's Landing 
— The army disheartened 119-123 

MANASSAS, 1862 A. D. 

Political events that culminated in war — Accession of Lincoln — Military spirit 
of the South — First attempts to coerce the seceding States — The movements 
on Richmond — Halleck and Pope loom up — McClellan obliged to fall back 
— General Lee marching northward — Stuart in Pope's rear — Stonewall Jack- 
son's audacious move — He captures the Union army's supplies — Pope's great 
opportunity — Jackson outwits his antagonists — Taliaferro and Ewell pounce 



CONTENTS. 1 1 

on Gibbon — Jackson's celebrated division finds its match — Disappointment 
of Pope over Stonevi^all Jackson's escape — Confusion on the Union side — 
McDowell's conflicting orders — Longstreet reaches forward to seize the 
heights that commanded the Northern lines— 'A desperate crisis — An ap- 
palling struggle around Groveton — The Federal army falls hack — Generals 
Kearney and I. I. Stevens killed — The South jubilant — The national for- 
tunes at their lowest ebb 125-152 

CHANCELLORSVILLE, 1863 A. D. 
Condition of the Army of the Potomac — General Joseph Hooker — Inactivity — 
Cavalry raids^Condition of Lee's army — Moseby's raid— Stoneman seeks 
Fitzhugh Lee — Hooker sends Meade, Howard and Slocum to Chancellors- 
ville — A remarkable march — Sedgwick's feint — Sickles' stealthy march — 
Disposition of Lee's forces — Early at Fredericksburg — Jackson joins Ander- 
son — Marching on Chancellorsville — Sykes fights McLaws — Jackson and 
Slocum grapple — Back to Chancellorsville — Councils of war — Lee adopts 
Jackson's plan — A bold movement — Birney detects Jackson — The twenty- 
third Georgia — Reinforcements for Sickles — Howard's Corps at supper — 
Jackson's irresistible charge — The Unionists panic-stricken — ^The contagion 
spreads — Jackson checked — Flight of tlie Eleventh Corps — Sickles in a 
tight place — Pleasanton to the rescue — The Eighth Pennsylvania — Jackson 
plans a second attack — Shot by his own men — Hospital at Wilderness 
Tavern — Jackson's death — Grief of his troops — Reynolds joins Hooker — 
Stuart's attack — Sickles' bayonets — Hooker wounded — Couch in command 
— The Confederates occupy Chancellorsville — Sedgwick captures Freder- 
icksburg Heights — Wilcox meets Sedgwick — Salem Church — The tide of 
battle — Sedgwick falls back — Crosses the Rappahannock — Hooker retreats 
to Falmouth — Losses 155-'^^^ 

GETTYSBURG, 1863 A. D. 

Emboldened by success General Lee decides to invade the North — Antietam a 
fruitless victory to the Union arms — Concert of action among Southern gen- 
erals, and its lack among those of the North — Bravery and determination of 
the rank and file of the Union army in spite of repeated defeats and disasters 
— General Halleck — Lee marches into the North — Hooker considers himself 
hampered by orders from Washington and resigns — George G. Meade the 
new commander — The Southern leaders that confronted him — Strength of 
Lee's army — Sketches of Northern generals — Both armies concentrating at 
Gettysburg, Pa. — Its location — The battle begins — Death of Reynolds — 
Hancock arrives at 5 P. M. — End of the First Day's battle with odds against 
the North — The Second Day — Meade rearranges his army during the night — 
Lee's plans — Longstreet's attack on Little Round Top, the key of the Union 
position — Both sides fight like demons — Death of Generals Cross and Zook 
— End of the Second Day — The odds again slightly in favor of the South — 
Meade summons a council — The Third Day — Lee's attack on the Union 
centre — An assault that reminds one of Ney and the Old Guard at Waterloo 
— Hancock sustains the brunt of this onset — Dauntless bearing of Pickett's 



1 2 CONTENTS. 

men — Hancock master of the situation — The Virginians annihilated — Meade 
finally victorious — Lee sullenly withdraws southward next day — Enormous 
losses on both sides — The fall of Vicksburg, July 4 — Hope reviving in the 
North— The tide turned 165-204 

NASHVILLE, 1864 A. D. 

>ne year 1863 one of disaster for the South — The three rising generals of the 
North, in the Western armies — Grant, lieutenant-general of the armies of the 
United States — Previous discord in the Army of the Potomac — A vigorouf 
prosecution of the v/ar determined upon — Grant " on to Richmand," and 
Sherman "marching to the sea" — General Thomas' important trust — Hood's 
Napoleonic idea — A glance at the former's situation — The battle of Franklin 
— Nashville and its fortifications — Impatience with Thomas at headquarters 
— His masterly strategy — On a level with the tactics of the victors of Leuthen, 
Austerlitz, and Jena — The great battle begins — "Old Slow Trot" out-gen- 
erals Hood — .The Cor^federate left turned — Their leader baffled, beaten, and 
bewilderfcd — Ead of the first day — Hood's disposition of his forces during 
the night— Their aew position carefully studied by Thomas — Again pounced 
upon and driven bdCk--A scene of wild enthusiasm in the Union army — 
Hood thoroughly defrayed — Demoralization attending his retreat — His losses 
— Estimate of Thomaj* ability as a soldier — His prominence in the war — 
His theories of a can;j.rtign — One of the noblest figures in American his- 
tory 205-233 

FIVE FORKS .kND LEE'S SURRENDER, 1865 A. D. 

The Army of the Potomac in front of Petersburg — Its terrible experience since 
Gettysburg — Meade's attempted surprise at Mine Run and its failure — War- 
ren unjustly censured — The North sore at heart — Grant and Sheridan called 
from the West — The former in chief command — His methods — Mortality in 
the Wilderness — The mint^ fiasco at Petersburg — Good news from Sherman 
and Thomas — Sheridan to the front — A glance at the map of the country 
over which the final struggle took place — Brilliant work of the cavalry — 
" Let us end this business here" — Grant's army as reorganized for the spring 
campaign — The final move on Lee — Lincoln's last visit to headquarters — 
Grant assaults Petersburg — Sheridan on Lee's flanks — Impatience of the 
former with Warren — The failure to entrap Pickett — Sheridan and Warren 
contrasted — Continued fighting — Ayres captures a whole brigade — Death of 
General Winthrop — Pickett's left and centre routed — Warren's decisive 
charge — His suspension from command the saddest feature of this brilliant 
day — Five P'orks a brilliant tactical battle — One-third of Lee's army de- 
stroyed and taken prisoners — " I have ordered an immediate assault along the 
lines"— Lee fights to the last— Death of A. P. Hill— Flight of Jefferson 
Davis — Fall of Richmond — Lee retreats fighting fiercely — He hopes to effect 
a jimction with J. E. Johnston at Danville — Grant's and Sheridan's determi- 
uatiyn — Five successive days and nights of v«hement, never-relaxing pursuit 



CONTENTS. 



13 



and combat — Lee's heavy losses — Grant asks him to surrender and avoid 
further bloodshed — Custer destroys Lee's provisions — Sheridan squarely 
across the Confederate army's track — The white flag hoisted — Meeiing of 
Grant and Lee to arrange the terms of surrender — Striking contrast between 
the two great leaders — Lee's fortitude gives way — The last of the Army of 
Northern Virginia — Number of men that surrendered — Johnston surrenders 
to Sherman — The Rebellion at an end — The assassination of Lincoln changes 
joy to mourning in the North , , , . 234-277 

GRAVELOTTE, 1870 A. D. 

Early life and adventures of Charles Louis Napoleon — His unscrupulous 
methods for securing power — Efforts for the glory and progress of France — 
His part in the Crimean war and subsequently in Mexico — Intriguing by 
turns with Austria and Prussia — Perfect military system of the latter — Her 
splendid cannons and small arms — Needle-gun and Chassepot compared — 
Memories of Magenta and Solferino — The Napoleon gun and the initrailleuse 
— Strength of the French army on paper — Vigilance and activity of Prussia 
— Her condition in 1870— The king and his able ministers — Napoleon's mis- 
calculations — The troubles concerning the Spanish crown afford him a pre- 
text for provoking war with Germany — Previous active preparations of both 
nations — Diff"erence in the results — War declared by France — " On to Berlin " 
— The German and French leaders and their commands — The emperor and 
Louis to the front — The German Crown Prince defeats MacMahon and 
seizes the key to Alsace — Von Moltke's precise calculations — Bazaine soou 
shut up in Metz — Resistless advance of Prussia— Gravelotte — Location of the 
field — The French fearfully outnumbered everywhere, and gradually falling 
back — Bazaine battered out of Gravelotte and his right enveloped — The 
heights in front of the town held by the French — Repulse of the Germans 
— Friedrich Karl's army to the rescue — Final Prussian success — Frightful 
losses on both sides — Bazaine still shut up in Metz — MacMahon falls back 
on Sedan — His position immediately attacked by the Germans — Wounded, 
he turns over the command to General Wimpffen — Napoleon III., despair- 
ing and broken-hearted, surrenders himself and the army — Jena avenged — - 
Capitulation of Metz — France's utter humiliation — Her enormous indemnity 
to Prussia, and loss of territory — Profiting by her sad experience 278-327 

PLEVNA, 1877 A. D. 

The Russians and Turks again in conflict — A war that followed closely on that 
of France and Germany — The causes that led to it — Turkey's discontented 
provinces — Russia declares war — Turkey's fighting strength — An army splen- 
didly equipped with rifles and artillery, but badly managed — Inferiority of 
the Russian arms and equipments — A well-disciplined army — The Cossacks 
— Russian disadvantages — Her activity and Turkey's inertness — A powerful 
Russian army in Turkey — Their early successes soon lead one army into a 
trap— First battle of Plevna — The Turks victorious — The second battle of 



1-i CONTENTS. 

Plevna, July 30 — Strong position of the Turks — Autocratic orders of the 
Russian commander-in-chief — An immediate attack ordered — Murderous 
work of the Peabody-Martini rifles of the Turks — First appearance of Skobe- 
leff in the war — Another grievous Russian disaster — The third attack on 
Plevna — Russia and Roumania on hand with 100,000 men — Osman Pasha's 
extensive preparations — The Russian plan of attack — The former again 
victorious — Description of the baltle — Skobeleff's brilliant and desperate 
charge — Causes of this great defeat — Russia now sits down before the gates 
of Plevna and starves out Osman Pasha — His final surrender — Turkey hum- 
bled — The Treat) of Peace as ratified by the Powers 32S-368 

PORT ARTHUR, 1894 A. D. 
An inevitable collision — Claims of each nation — Corea — A land of contention 
— War declared — Japan invades China — A Chinese naval station — Strategic 
importance — Defences of Port Arthur — The town invested — The key of the 
Position — The first shot — The Chinese reply — A Japanese charge — The flag 
of the Rising Sun — The Chinese Fly — A counter-attack — General Nishi to 
the rescue — Hasegawa and the northeast Forts — The Pine Tree Hill Forts 
— The forts taken — The Japanese break cover — Swarms of riflemen — A hail 
of bullets — The Japanese fleet — Port Arthur in the hands of the Japanese 
— The Hakuaisha — Japanese hospitals — The massacre — Stories of eye- 
witnesses — Piteous deaths — Japan disgraced — Retaliation for Chinese 
atrocities — Peace negotiations — Li Hung Chang attacked by a fanatic — 
The Treaty 069-389 

SANTIAGO, 1898 A. D. 

, anding of the Marines — The Army of Invasion — Theodore Roosevelt — The 
Armada — The Landing — The Rough Riders — First Encounter — The Land 
Crab — Wii-e Barricades — The Regulars — Journalistic Clamor — Barbed 
wire entanglements — The flower of the army — A Happy-go-lucky Advance 

" — The Cuban Contingent — Points of Vantage — Walls of obstinate growth — 
La Guasimas — A herculean climb — The Army Fighting on — Springfield 
vs. Mauser — El Caney — The Thirteenth Regulars — The gatlings grind 
out death — Chaft'ee at El Caney — Capron's merciless guns — Haskell and 
the Seventeenth — A Tooth and Nail Conflict — Exhausted Surgeons — El 
Pozo — Mapping the Way — Through dense chapparal — A glimpse of Santi- 
ago — Uncanny forms of nature — The Red Cross Samaritans — Unwilling 
Witnesses — The Tenth Cavalry — How it Feels to be Hit — The Color- 
Sergeant's Story — Under the Balloon — Bullets' tears seams in the hot air 
— The Hill and the Fence — The Hospital Corps — Death in torrents — Kent 
and Sumner — Hawkins' Tranquillity — Forcing the wire networks — " Not 
War, but Magnificent " — The Death-dealing Hill of San Juan — The Two 
Captains — -Charge of the Regulars — The downpour of Mausers — Story of 
the Ants — " How's the Sixteenth ? " — Human Ammunition — Sharpshooters 
— Trudging to Siboney — Medical Attendance — General Toral — Shaffer's 
Demand — The Capitulation — The Two Armies 390-450 



CONTENTS 15 

BATTLE OF LIAOYANG, 1904, A. D. 

Japanese advance from three directions against fortified city — Russian 
outposts driven in — Japanese make desperate frontal attack — Battle 
rages on line twenty miles long — Russian trenches piled high with 
dead after hand to hand struggles — Japanese shells reach city, 
settling storehouses on fire — General Kuroki begins wide turning 
movement — Crosses Taitse River, advances to cut off Russian 
retreat — Kuropatkin flanked, compelled to evacuate citj- — Begins 
retreat — Japanese pursue — Fifty miles of rear guard fighting — 
Armies exhausted, cease firing— Kuropatkin establishes headquarters 
at Mukden — Japanese entrench at Yentai. 453-471 

BATTLE OF SHAKHE RIVER, 1904, A. D. 

Kuropatkin declares army ready to assume offensive — Begins advance 
southward — Wins initial victories — Japanese concentrate at Yentai 
— Deadly struggle rages over front thirty-five miles long — Russian 
centre pierced — Kuropatkin compelled to fall back — Flanks defeated, 
to prevent turning movement, Russians begin retreat — Fight every 
step of way — Ten days of continuous struggle waged — Armies ex- 
hausted — Battle ends with armies facing each other along the 
Shakhe — The Russian retreat of ten miles leaves thousands of dead. 
Armies in winter quarters — Trenches so near, voices of soldiers of 
each army heard in other's lines. 473-481 

SIEGE OF PORT ARTHUR, MAY 5, 1904, JAN. 2, 1905 

Japan's navy makes initial attack, crippling fleet in harbor — Begins 
blockade, investing fortress from sea — Battle of Yalu and begin- 
ning of land investment — Investment complete, with occupation 
of Dalny, May 30, 1904 — Attacks on Northern and Western 
forta — Fort Kuropatkin taken — Besiegers at foot of 203-Metre 
Hill — Long months of sapping and mining — Assiaults on outer 
works of Northern forts — 203-Metre Hill captured — Russian fleet 
destroyed by artillery fire — Rehlungshan fort shattered by mine, 
stormed and captured — Adjoining forts fall — General Stoessel offers 
to surrender — The terms agreed on — Japan's flag flies over the 
fortress — Length of siege 242 days— Captor, General Nogi. 485-507 



WATERLOO. 




1815. 

HE winter of 1808 found Napoleon at the very 
zenith of his power and dominion ; but now 
came the downward course of his star of 
destiny. He had again humbled Austria after 
winning the great battle of Wagram, but, 
when he resolved upon the invasion of Russia 
against the advice of all thinking counselors, 
he became a spendthrift of his every resource; 
and the terrible story of tiie retreat from 
Moscow is the story of his downfall. Europe 
^ ."/en made common cause against the monarch who persisted 
iP his course of providing the thrones of weakened and con- 
quered nations with occupants of his own blood or selection. 
The battles of Liitzen, Bautzen and Dresden followed in 18 13, 
waerein the emperor kept his marvellous supremacy, but was 
greatly crippled by the severity of the fighting. Finally the 
turning-point came. The allies won the battle of Leipsic — "The 
Battle of the Nations," as it was called — late in October, 18 13, 
and in the following spring were received with acclamations in 
Paris; and Napoleon in May, 18 14, became an exile — virtually a 
prisoner — in Elba. 

Ten months thereafter, Europe was thunderstruck by the news 
that Napoleon Buonaparte had escaped, had landed in France, 
and that the army rallied about him as of old, bore him on to 
Paris and reseated him on the throne, from which the Bourbon 
King, Louis XVHI., had fled in terror. 

It so happened that the delegates of the leading states in 
Europe were then in congress at Vienna to devise measures to 
17 




BATTLE-FIELD OF WATERLOO, SHOWING THE POSITION OF THE 
j3 contending forces at 6 p. M.. JUNE 18, ISlk 



"THE MAN OF DESTINY" REAPPEARS. tg 

«»cure peace and public safety throughout the continent, and 
to put an end to the bloody wars that had ravaged it for a 
century ; and here, to their amaze, they were confronted by 
the tidings that the great disturber of the peace of Christendom, 
the Corsican emperor whom they believed crushed and dis- 
armed, was once again at the head of " The Old Guard," and 
that France, whose volatile people but a year agone had declared 
themselves " done with Napoleon," and had greeted the allied 
entry into Paris with cheers, was now with resounding acclama- 
tions welcoming back " The Man of Destiny." 

" To arms ! " was the vote. The cry echoed over Europe, 
and, by May, 500,000 men were marching on the frontiers of 
France. It was resolved to treat with Napoleon no longer. He 
must be annihilated. 

Of all his enemies England was now the most active. Par- 
liament voted not only men and money for her own army and 
navy, but immense sums for the support of other armies on 
the continent. All the leading nations were leagued against 
Napoleon, but England was the treasurer. This time, too, her 
troops were sent across the channel, appeared in force in Bel- 
gium, for the line of the Netherlands was sure to be, as of old, 
the scene of desperate fighting ; and here, south of Brussels, the 
combined forces of England, Hanover, Brunswick and Nassau 
were hurriedly gathered, and Arthur, Duke of Wellington, 
whose brilliant achievements in Spain had filled the British 
nation with high hopes of success, was placed at the head. 

Hastening to join him, and with an army fully as strong, there 
came from Prussia the bitterest foeman the emperor had in 
Europe, " the debauched old dragoon " as he had called him — 
nozv Field-Marshal Prince Bliicher von Wahlstadt. The fierce 
old " Red Hussar," intemperate, illiterate, ignorant of strategy, 
but making up in fiery zeal and courage for lack of " book- 
soldier" ability, had been so vast an aid to the allies in 18 14, 
so prominent in the campaign, that he was received in England 
with honors equal to those bestowed on the sovereigns of Rus- 
sia, Prussia and Austria. He was loaded with military decora- 
tions, and, absurd as it may seem, the learned University of 



20 WATERLOO. 

Oxford conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. Even 
Bliicher had to laugh at so scholastic a farce as that ; but here 
he was again, our dragoon doctor of laws, seventy-three years 
old, but as hard a rider as ever, and fiercely happy to have one 
more chance at throttling the conqueror who had so humbled 
him and his people. 

Wellington and Bliicher were in front of Brussels in May, 
but the agreement made was, that no movement should be at- 
tempted across the border into France until the armies of the 
other nations should reach the front. The Prussians speedily 
moved an army of over 100,000 men under Count Kleist von 
Nollendorf to the banks of the Rhine. The Austrians under 
Schwartzenburg were marching into the Black Forest and ap- 
pearing between Basle and Manheim with an army of nearly 
100,000. The Bavarians were to aid them with some 70,000, 
and, largest yet, under Count Barclay de Tolly, a Russian army 
of 167,000 men was already pushing through Germany. 

Now if all these troops were allowed to unite, the combined 
force would be too great for the hurriedly reassembled army of 
Napoleon. All soldiers who had studied his methods felt sure 
that he would resort to his old tactics; that he would attack and 
strive to beat them in detail. No one was more certain of this 
than England's Iron Duke. He felt confident that Napoleon 
would dash upon him and Bliicher, and his heart was full of 
anxiety. If Napoleon could win a signal victory over them, 
and march in to Brussels, all Belgium would declare for him, 
and thousands, still holding aloof in France, would flock to his 
standard. He could then turn sharply on Count Kleist and 
Schwartzenburg — no question as to the result of tliat assault — 
and then be in perfect readiness to crush the army of Russia. 
Then he could dictate a peace — indeed, he would virtually be 
the dictator of Europe. Everything, therefore, depended on the 
first battle. 

Just as Wellington expected, on he came. On the 15th of 
June, with the Grand Army at his back, Napoleon marched to 
Charleroi with 120,000 men and struck the river Sambre forty 
miles south of Brussels, found the English occupying the road 




SIR ARTHUK WEIJJiaLEY, DUKE OF "WELLINGTON. 



FAILURE OF NAPOLEON'S PLANS. 23 

to the north, pushed them up towards Brussels with his left 
wing, while with the main body he pounced upon old Bliicher 
at Ligny on the i6th and drove him back on Wavre, so that 
Wellington's men, who had made a gallant stand against Ney 
at Quatre Bras, were compelled to fall back a few miles farther 
to a position about twelve miles south of Brussels that had pre- 
viously attracted the eye of Wellington; and thither on the 17th, 
skirmishing all the way. Napoleon followed him. All had not 
prospered with Napoleon up to this point. He had planned to 
throw himself on Bliicher with 75,000 men, while Ney, after 
occupying Quatre Bras, five miles to the west, and seizing the 
roads so as to prevent the English from reinforcing Bliicher, 
was to come upon the Prussian rear, and, between them, the 
destruction of the army would be complete. But for once Ney 
failed his great leader. Instead of seizing the village of Quatre 
Bras at dawn on the i6th, Ney let the British get there first and 
then "stand him off" all day. Consequently the bloody battle 
of Ligny was not the success Napoleon had hoped for. After 
a very severe combat against superior numbers he had compelled 
old Bliicher to retreat in great disorder. Bliicher himself was 
crushed to earth by his wounded horse and barely escaped cap- 
ture ; but when the rout finally began there was no Ney in rear 
to capture and disarm the fugitives, and, to Napoleon's chagrin, 
the beaten army got away towards Wavre, which lies some fif- 
teen miles southeast of Brussels, and not more than eight miles 
east of the position to which Wellington withdrew his men on 
the 17th. 

Ligny had cost the French 6,800 killed and wounded — far 
more than the emperor could spare — and the Prussian loss of 
25,000 men killed, wounded and prisoners, and twenty-one guns, 
did not compensate Napoleon for the failure of his plans. The 
best thing he could do was to send a strong force to follow 
Blucher and his demoralized army and prevent their reassem- 
bling in time to aid Wellington. This duty was intrusted to 
Marshal Grouchy with 35,000 men, and so, reduced severely by 
his losses at Ligny and Quatre Bras, and this groat detachment 
under Grouchy, the emperor was compelled to cotrfront Welling- 
3 



24 Waterloo. 

ton, when he well knew that his crown, his whole future and 
that of Europe were the stakes of the battle, and he had only 
70,000 men to fight with. 

But time was everything. To beat Wellington, and to beat 
him instantly, was his only hope. Ill luck had pursued him 
since he crossed the Sambre. He had planned to throw his 
whole army on Bliicher and destroy him on the i6th, then to 
turn his whole force on Wellington and crush him on the 17th. 
He could have done it — easily, for his army was stronger than 
either one of their divided forces, but now on the evening of 
the 17th Bliicher was rallying at Wavre. Wellington was con- 
fronting him across this broad and unfamiliar valley, and he, 
who depended so much on his guns and cavalry, was now dis- 
mally certain that he would not be able to use them on the 
morning of the morrow — it was raining in torrents and the 
ground was a quagmire. 

All this was hard to bear, but Napoleon was hopeful and 
determined. If Grouchy would only hold Bliicher at Wavre, 
even though he could not hope to use his guns and horsemen 
until late in the day, Napoleon believed that he could thrash 
the British before the setting of another sun. Then on to 
Brussels ! 

First let us take a look at the lay of the land, then we can 
better understand the great scene there enacted. It is the same 
country over which Marlborough and Prince Eugene fought and 
marched a century previous. Englishmen knew it well ; French- 
men even better. Hardly an acre of its surface has escaped its 
libation of human blood, for Belgium was the battle-field of 
Europe time and again. Brussels, its beautiful capital, lies in 
the centre of a rolling, well-watered, well-wooded tract. Here, 
there and everywhere are smiling little towns and villages ; 
every stream is dotted with home-like hamlets ; and in the days 
of 18 1 5 many a stately old chateau, many a walled and fortified 
city remained to remind the traveller of the battles and sieges 
of the previous century. 

West of Brussels, not forty miles away, lay Oudenarde; east, 
not twenty-five, the field of Ramilies; west of south, perhaps 



A GLANCE AT THE BATTLE-FIELD. 25 

fifty, Valenciennes and Bavay, where Malplaquet was fougliC. 
The whole region was densely populated, mainly by a thriving 
and industrious class, and, far and near, the gently undulating 
surface was cut up into farms and homesteads, while running in 
every direction, and connecting the large cities, were broad, well- 
kept highways, shaded with poplars on the sides and often paved 
in the middle. 

The main road from Brussels to the cities on the Sambre is 
the one of most interest to us. Quitting the capital at the 
south by the Namur gate, it runs very nearly due south for 
about ten miles, then forks. The east fork leads through 
Genappe to Quatre Bras, where you turn southeastward if going 
to Namur, or keep on due south if bound for Charleroi. The 
west fork strikes off through Nivelles to Mons, Bavay and 
Maubeuge. A broad highway crosses eastward from Nivelles 
to Namur, mtersecting the east fork at Quatre Bras and so giving 
the little village its name — Four Arms. Now, after leaving 
Brussels by this first road, the traveller passes for several miles 
through a dense wood, the forest of Soignies, at the southern 
skirt of which there nestles a little Belgian village, Waterloo, 
Passing through this village one follows the highway out upon 
an open plateau and comes upon another hahilet just at the 
great fork of the high-road. It is the hamlet and this is the 
plateau of Mont St. Jean. Follow the east road a few hundred 
yards and you come to the edge of the plateau, runnmg east 
and west, and see before you a mile-wide depression or valley 
into which the two roads dip and rise to the opposite crest. 
It looks not unlike the hollow between two long-rolling ocean 
waves. It looks to-day very little as it did in 1815. It had so 
changed with its new growth of trees or its loss of old landmarks 
only a few years after the great campaign of the Netherlands that 
the Duke of Wellington, gazing upon it in disappointment and 
some indignation, exclaimed: "Why, d — n it all! they've spoiled 
my battle-field." For that shallow valley is the field of Napo- 
leon's last battle, and England aun. Prussia's greatest victory — 
the far-famed field of Waterloo. 

To see it as it was in 1815, let us take our stand here at the 



26 WATERLOO. 

very edge of the plateau, facing south, just where the road to 
Charleroi begins its downward dip into the low valley. The 
edge of the plateau is sharply defined like the ridge of the ocean 
wave to which we have compared it; for, looking back and 
around us, we see that the ground slopes downward to the north 
as well as to the south, so that the ridge at the edge forms, for 
some distance to the right and left, a natural breast-work. Per- 
haps it was this feature that attracted the eye of the Iron Duke, 
for certain it is, that infantry, crouching along the northern face 
of that ridge, will be fully protected from all but a steeply plung- 
ing fire from the south ; and, as for guns and cavalry, the plateau 
of Mont St. Jean presents, in many places, admirable positions 
well up to the front, where cavalry can be formed in readiness 
for attack, or where batteries can be grouped until needed in 
action, and they cannot be seen from across the valley. 

Crossing the Charleroi road at right angles, our ridge runs 
nearly east and west ; but about a third of a mile to the east it 
begins to rise into a mound, and about quarter of a mile to the 
west it begins very gently to curve away toward the south and 
make quite a sweep in that direction ; and all along this ridge, 
from the west to the mound to the east, there runs a country 
dirt-road, partly on the crest, partly behind it, and occasionally 
between sloping banks. This cross-road starts out from where 
the ridge intersects the Nivelles highway, off to the south of 
west of our stand-point, and, passing behind the mound to the 
east, strikes off across an open plateau to the northeastward. It 
leads to Wavre by way of the village of Ohain. 

Back of us, and to the right and left, the ridge and the plateau 
are open, with occasional small groves and patches of trees ; 
i^outhward all is smooth, open turf except at three points and on 
the highway. Down the slope, hugging the roadside on the 
west and not more than 200 yards from us, begins a little farm 
enclosure, with rude stone walls and hedges. Its garden is on 
the side nearest us; then come the farm buildings; beyond them 
an orchard. It is the farm of La Haye Sainte. 

Off to our right front, as we gaze across the vale, is a far larger 
tarm enclosure, half a mile from the Charleroi highway at its 




THE RETUKN FROM ELBA. (C Delort.) 



HOUGOMONT, LA BELLE ALLIANCE AND ROSSOMME. 29 

nearest point and occupying an irregular square, eachof whose 
sides must be at least a quarter of a mile in length. Its northern 
half is taken up by stone buildings in a flattened, hollow square, 
by a prim, old-fashioned Flemish garden, and by a large orchard. 
South of the buildings is quite a thick wood ; east of the wood, 
two open fields, hedged in and forming the southeastern quarter 
of the enclosure. The garden is bounded on the south by a 
brick wall, high and thick ; yet, so thick are the hedge and the 
apple-trees below it, you cannot see it until when within a few 
yards. A fine drive, lined by stately elms, leads northwestward 
into the Nivelles high-road. The buildings consist of a substantial 
dwelling surmounted by a tower, offices, stables, cow-houses, and 
a quaint little chapel surrounding a paved court, in the middle 
of which is a well with a high wooden structure over it — a dove- 
cote, and the dove-cote is full of its cooing, fluttering occupants, 
and the court with poultry. This is the chateau of Hougomont. 

Down to our left, a good three-quarters mile east of La Haye 
Sainte, the smooth slope is cut up by some hedges ; then come 
one or two winding paths and roads leading up to the plateau ; 
then two little hamlets with their farm enclosures : the nearest 
one is Papelotte ; the farthest. La Haye. Be careful not to con- 
found it with La Haye Sainte. These enclosures are well shaded ; 
beyond them, over a mile from the Charleroi road, are more 
farm enclosures and several patches of woods. 

Now directly south of us, almost a mile away and on the 
opposite slope, is another little farm and roadside inn — La Belle 
AllLnce, they call it; still farther back beyond it a ridge like 
our own, with a little mite of a village at the top on the high- 
way, an ' a rr. ^ch Targer village, with church and stone walls, 
nearly a mile to the east of that i oad. The little village is Ros- 
somme; the big one, rlanchenoit, and the rising ground about 
them is dignified of late years by the name of the Heights of 
Rossomme. 

Such is the field of Waterloo as we look at it from the Eng- 
lish side; and here, on the damp, rainy, misty morning of June 
18th, 18 1 5, two hostile armies are arrayed to settle the fate of 
Europe, The army drawn up or the plateau of Mont St. Jean 



30 WATERLOO. 

is that of Wellington. The army on the opposite slope, just 
under Rossomme heights, is that of Napoleon. At this moment, 
according to official reports, Wellington has actually in position 
and ready for battle, exclusive of sick, wounded or otherwise 
incapacitated, the following force : infantry, 49,608 ; cavalry, 12,- 
408; artillery, 5,645. Grand total, 67,661 men and 156 guns. 

With this force he has to fight, unaided until Bliicher can reach 
him, the following Frenchmen : infantry, 48,950; cavalry, 15,765; 
artillery, 7,232. Grand total, 71,947 men and 246 guns. 

Napoleon's men are all French, and reliable veterans as a rule. 
Wellington's Hanoverians and Brunswickers are not up to the 
British mark, and the Belgians are shaky ; so that, both in num- 
bers and in " personnel," the emperor has the best of it. But 
Wellington has the advantage in position, and late in the day he, 
as the world knows, was heavily reinforced by Bliicher, who 
brought to the field : infantry, 41,283; cavalry, 8,858 ; artillery, 
1,803. Total, 51,944 men and 104 guns. So that, before even- 
ing. Napoleon had had to face and fight 119,000 men and 260 
guns. 

These are the figures given us by Captain Siborne, of the Brit- 
ish army, whose maps, plans, model and history of Waterloo 
were a life-study with him, and who shows no disposition to 
under-rate British numbers and over-rate those of the French. 
Possibly he might have neglected to weed out Napoleon's " inef- 
fectives," and to have been over-careful about those of the allies, 
for other historians give Wellington a fighting force of 75,000; 
but, as we shall presently see, some of these did not fight. Cap- 
tain Siborne may have declined to count them in for that reason. 

Ashas been said, it rained in torrents all the evening and most 
of the night of the 17th. The morning of the i8th broke, low- 
ering and dismal. The clouds were lifted from the sodden earth, 
but hung threateningly over the field all day long. None the less, 
England and her allies, France and her devoted soldiers sprang 
to arms at early dawn, and, deserting their bivouac fires around 
which the men had grouped through the wet and cheerless night, 
they occupied themselves for hours in cleaning and drying their 
arms and clothing. Outposts and sentinels who, during the night, 



NAPOLEON'S ANXIETY CONCERNING GROUCHY. 31 

.had crouched within speaking distance of one another, were 
drawn in ; long skirmish Hnes, some of infantry, some of troopers, 
appeared in their stead, but not until after nine o'clock did the 
formation of the battle-lines begin. Wellington was in no hurry. 
He would have been glad to wait another day, when Bliicher 
could surely be with him. Knowing him to be badly whipped 
at Ligny and to have fallen back to Wavre in disorder, Welling- 
ton was very anxious; but, on the evening of the 17th, his 
anxiety was much lightened by the reception of Blijcher's reply 
to his appeal for support. It was characteristic of the fierce old 
war-dog : " I shall not come with two corps only, but with my 
whole army ; upon this understanding, however, that should the 
French not attack us on the i8th, we shall attack them on the 
19th." 

Napoleon, on the contrary, was eager to begin. Time was 
everything ; but his guns sank to the hubs in the spongy ground ; 
his chargers floundered up to the hocks in the mud. He had to 
wait a while. Anxiously he scanned the opposite crests, and ever 
and anon swept the eastern horizon with his glass. By this time 
he must have known that Bliicher's retreat had been northward 
towards Wavre, and he was to blame for not having pushed 
Grouchy in his track the night of the i6th instead of waiting 
until late on the morning of the 17th. Blijcher had therefore 
had time to rally and reform. Now could Grouchy with 35,000 
hold him ? If not, would Grouchy have sense enough to get 
between him and Napoleon, and so fall back fighting on his 
chief? If Desaix had lived and were there; if Davout- had 
only been in Grouchy's place, or Massena, or the lion-hearted 
Lannes ; or even had Ney been sent — Ney who had blundered 
at Quatre Bras — the emperor would have felt assured; but Grou- 
chy was not one of the old array of fighting marshals, and, in 
his haste or carelessness, Napoleon's orders to Grouchy were not 
all they should have been to cover the case. They were brief 
and explicit, but not entirely practicable : " Pursue the Prussians ; 
complete their defeat by attacking as soon as you come up with 
them, and never let them out of your sight." But, according to 
Siborne, Grouchy had but 32,000; Blucher must have had nearly 



33 WATERLOO. 

90,000 around Wavre. It was quite an easy thing to say, attack 
and rout an army three times as big as your own, but, difficult 
to do it. Failing in that, however, it still lay in Grouchy's 
power to keep between Bliicher and Napoleon, and so render it, 
for the time being at least, impossible for him to interfere while 
the French were pounding the English and Hanoverians to pieces 
at Waterloo. 

Grouchy did neither. 

At ten o'clock on this lowering June morning, with a grand 
outburst of martial music, with every military pomp and cere- 
mony, the army of Napoleon moved forward into position and 
deployed its lines along the slopes to the right and left of La 
Belle Alliance. Wellington's army, in silence that was striking 
in its great contrast, moved into the positions assigned the various 
corps, and then ensued the momentous pause before the 
struggle. 

Standing here at the top of the slope and close to the Char- 
leroi road, let us take a good look at the opposing armies be- 
fore the fight begins. We will want to get away soon enough. 
The first thing that strikes the eye is the double curve of the 
long red lines of the British infantry. To our right they are 
straight for only quarter of a mile, then they curve outwards 
towards the French and extend well down towards Hougo- 
mont. To our left they are nearly straight towards the mound 
back of Papclottc, then they curve backwards towards the 
plateau. Their right is heavily backed up by strong reserves 
on the wooded slopes towards the farms of Merbe Braine. Their 
left is open and " out in the air." Far in front of the right, 
down in the " swale," as our plainsmen would call it, is that 
great enclosure of Hougomont, and though from here we can 
see little of them, it is bristling with British bayonets. The 
garden walls are pierced with loop-holes ; the gates and door- 
ways barricaded. The chateau, the farm buildings, the garden 
and orchard are crammed with the foot guardsmen of England. 
Coldstreams and Scots Fusiliers under Colonel Macdonell in 
the buildings, grenadiers under Lord Saltoun in the orchard, 
and the light infantry of Hanover and Nassau in the wood 



DISPOSITION OF WELLINGTON'S FORCES. ^;^ 

Far ofif to our right, beyond Hougomont and across the Nivelles 
road, are a few battaHons of red infantry supporting the skir- 
mishers that spread out over the slopes to the south and west. 
These are the Hght troops of Lord Hill's Second corps, and 
among them are the Welsh Fusiliers, the Twenty-third regi- 
ment of the line, which guards the .Nivelles road, while the 
Fourteenth and Fifty-first are farther out to the west, where a 
few squadrons of horse can also be seen. 

Back of Hougomont is posted a strong brigade of foot guards. 
The plateau to the rear being heavily held by what appears to 
be an entire division of infantry, partly English, from their 
scarlet uniforms, partly Hanoverians. They are the three brig- 
ades of Adam and Du Piatt (British) and Halkett (Hanoverian), 
and they number nearly 9,000 men, and are all posted to the 
west of the Nivelles road, where Sir Henry Clinton is charged 
with the command. Between us and the Nivelles road, be- 
ginning over at the right, are the guards of Byng and Maitland 
in the front line, and then in order the brigades of Halkett, 
Kielmansegge and Ompteda. They cover the front between the 
roads, and there are some splendid troops over where the 
Guards and Halkett's men are posted. 

In rear of them, and drawn up in closed columns of squad- 
rons, are brigades of hussars and light dragoons — the English 
light cavalry well forward, the Dutch, Belgians and Brunswickers 
pretty well back. Far off to the right rear is in reserve the in- 
fantry and cavalry of the Brunswick corps. Its gallant chief 
was killed at Quatre Bras, dying as did his gallant predecessor 
at Auerstadt. 

Immediately behind Ompteda's footmen, with their left rest- 
ing upon the Charleroi road, is a cavalry brigade, we need to 
turn about and take a good look at. Drawn up in line are four 
superb regiments, all in glittering helmets — three in scarlet 
coats, one in blue. They are the " Household Heavies " of Lord 
Somerset. The First and Second Life, the Royal Horse Guards 
(blue) and the First (King's Own) Dragoon Guards. These, 
with the threatening batteries, pushed well forward to the 
crest, and the long thin line of skirmishers half way down 



34 WATERLOO. 

the slope from La Haye Sainte to the northern corner of 
Hougomont, are all the troops of the right wing. Now look to 
the left. 

First there is the skirmish line well out to the front and 
extending over to Papelotte, where it is lost in the hedges. 
Then south of the Ohain cross-road is Bylandt's brigade of 
Dutch-Belgians in one long line. Then similarly deployed, but 
behind the road, the long line of Best's Hanoverians, while 
La Haye and Papelotte are held by the troops of the Prince 
of Saxe- Weimar. These are all of Perponcher's division. 

Supporting them, posted with intervals in readiness to spring 
forward and deploy, is a famous British division under a famous 
leader, General Sir Thomas Picton, commander of the " fight- 
ing division " of the Peninsular war. Two of his brigades, 
Kempt's and Pack's, are here close behind us. In Kempt's 
brigade are the Seventy-ninth Highlanders, known the world 
over, the Twenty-eighth of the line, immortalized in later years 
by Elizabeth Thompson's superb painting of the British squares 
at Quatre Bras. In Pack's brigade are two regiments of High- 
landers ; the Black Watch (Forty-second) and the Ninety-second, 
and two old and tried line corps, the First Royal Scots and the 
Forty-fourth. This is a division to be proud of 

To their rear, nearly aligned with the Household cavalry, is 
another famous command: Ponsonby's heavies, the "Union Brig- 
ade " — a regiment each of English, Scotch and Irish heavy dra- 
goons, the Royals, the Scots' Greys, and the Inniskillings. Far 
off to the left are the light cavalry brigades of Vandeleur and 
Vivian, and these, with their batteries, complete the left wing. 

Down in front of us, the little farm of La Haye Sainte is held 
by Major Baring with 400 light infantry; and now, while from 
Rossomme only the very front of the allied lines can be seen, 
Wellington, from his position, has this great advantage — the en- 
tire army of Napoleon is displayed to view. In point of military 
appearance, it is far more homogeneous — far more united and 
serviceable-looking than that of the allies. It will take but few 
words to describe it. With its batteries in front, in two long 
lines of infantry, D'Erlon's First corps stretches from La Belle 



THE FRENCH ORDER OF BATTLE. 35 

Alliance to a point just south of Papelotte, covered on the east 
by its cavalry; four divisions are in line there, all in sombre 
dress of dark blue. Behind them we see two long lines of glit- 
tering cuirassiers — Milhaud's division. Behind them, still farther 
up the slope, are the light cavalry of the imperial guard, also in 
two long lines : the lancers, in their high, broad-topped Polish 
shakos and gay scarlet tunics ; the chasseurs, in a gorgeous hus- 
sar costume of green and gold. These fellows are the beaux 
and dandies of the French army — trim, jaunty, light riders on 
nimble horses, and their general, Lefebvre Desnouettes, is as 
proud of them as ever was Murat, who is struggling for his own 
crown in Italy. Two hundred yards behind La Belle Alliance 
there is an abrupt rise in the ground to a height a trifle above 
the level of our position here. The road cuts through part of 
it, but rises steeply, too, and on that height, east of the road, 
with their horse-batteries on the flanks, are the cavalry brigades 
of Domont and Subervie. All this is comprised in the right wing 
of the French. 

Resting on the little inn and enclosure of La Belle Alliance, 
and thence sweeping way round in a long curve with its con- 
cavity towards us, is the infantry of the left wing — Reille's Sec- 
ond corps. It is formed in two lines like the right wing, but not 
quite as trimly and compactly, for one of its divisions, Gerard's, 
was badly cut up at Ligny and has been left there. Bachelu's 
division is nearest our front; Foy's is on its left; while Prince 
Jerome Bonaparte's, a large one, encircles, you may say, the 
southern front of Hougomont. Stretching across the Nivelles 
road are the fifteen squadrons of the cavalry of the Second corps. 
In rear of the divisions of Foy and Jerome is Kellerman's superb 
corps of heavy dragoons and cuirassiers ; back of them, Guyot's 
heavy division of the imperial guard cavalry, so that the left wing 
is formed precisely like the right. The French order of battle is 
beautifully symmetrical and soldier-like. 

In reserve, massed in columns of battalions along the west 
side of the Charleroi road, is the infantry of the Sixth corps, its 
batteries on its left and on the heights of Rossomme behind 
them. Half on the east, half on the west side of the highway 



36 WATERLOO. 

is the grand reserve of the imperial guard, its batteries on its 
flanks. The guard is drawn up in six lines, four regiments in 
each, and in the absence of Marshal Mortier, left sick at Beau- 
mont, the guard is led by General Drouot ; while two of its di- 
visions, the old guard and the middle guard, are commanded by 
those grand soldiers whom we learned to know at Austerlitz and 
Auerstadt — Generals Friant and Morand. The young guard is 
led by General Duhesme. 

Marshal Ney had only joined Napoleon three days before, and 
he now commands the whole front line — that of the First and 
Second corps. Vandamme's Third corps, Gerard's Fourth corps 
and the Sixth cavalry corps are away with Grouchy, besides 
divisions or brigades of the corps now in line. 

It is impossible to describe the admiration with which old cam- 
paigners along the crest of Mont St. Jean had watched the 
splendid formation of the French line of battle. It is only 
1,400 yards from where we stand, to their centre. All is clear; 
every movement is in full view, and now, as though to add to the 
spirit and brilliancy of the scene, saluted by drooping colors and 
flashing arms, followed by a glittering staff, the emperor canters 
along his lines, going their entire length that all may see and be 
seen by him. Cheer upon cheer rends the air, and in the British 
lines hundreds push forward to catch a glimpse of the never-to- 
be-forgotten sight. It is Napoleon's last review of the grand 
army. Some gunners eagerly ask permission to train their pieces 
and open fire on the imperial group, but it is promptly denied. 
Afterwards, indeed, when a battery commander rides to Lord 
Wellington and says that, though now in the heat of battle, he 
can distinctly recognize the emperor and staff, and asks permis- 
sion to shell the party, the duke sternly replies, "No. It is not 
the business of commanders to be firing on one another." 

Satisfied, apparently, with his survey, Napoleon rides back up 
the slopes, reins in near the guard facing north, gets his glass 
in readiness and looks calmly around. It is a little after eleven 
o'clock. It has cleared somewhat ; is now close and murky. 
Instinctively every one feels that now the shock is coming, and, 
sure enough, it comes. All eyes are eager to see the first move 




THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. {C. Ddo^t) 



HOUGOMONT THE FIRST POINT OF ATTACK. 39 

of this great master of the war-game, and it is a true one. It 
is aimed at Hougomont. 

Look ! From the right of Prince Jerome's division a column 
of infantry pushes out towards the wood south of the chateau ; 
a bugle sounds a stirring peal, and instantly the leading" com- 
panies spring lightly forward, spreading out in skirmish order. 
Half a dozen little jets of bluish smoke pop from the wood cor- 
ner, and faint sounds as of pistol-shots are reaching our ears 
just as the half-dozen jets are swallowed up in a sudden cloud, 
and the crash of a distant volley is borne on the breeze. These 
excitable Nassauers have opened the ball with a vengeance. 
Four or five black objects, advancing with the skirmish line, 
drop. The others come jauntily ahead, and presently each one 
is crowned with a little puff of smoke of his own. The " tirail- 
leurs " have opened fire. A second line comes dancing out to 
the support of the first ; the popping becomes a rattle. The 
supporting battalions begin crowding out to the front, and in 
columns of companies are pressing towards the wood. 

Suddenly there is a rapid movement of gunners in the light 
battery right out here in front of Kielmansegge's men, and Cap- 
tain Cleve's voice is heard in sharp command. Sponge-staves 
and rammers whirl rapidly in air one instant, the gunners spring 
quickly back ; then, with a thundering roar, the right gun 
belches out a volume of smoke and fire. Something goes 
whirring and smoking across the valley and bursts with a puff 
just over the nearest bat*^lion ; a half-suppressed cheer breaks 
along the ridge, the other guns boom forth in quick succession, 
the batteries of Cooke's division, farther to the right, follow suit, 
and the great battle of Waterloo has begun. 

Now the French guns of the Second corps take up the chorus. 
From La Belle Alliance to the Nivelles road every battery 
bursts into flame, and, as though that were not enough, here 
come Kellerman's horse-batteries down from the second line to 
crowd in on the first. Gentlemen, the emperor means to follow 
his old tactics — a crushing fire of artillery and then an advance. 
The shells are now flying over our heads, tearing up the earth 
along Mont St. Jean. " Lie down," is the stern, quiet order of 



40 WATERLOO. 

the officers, and the footmen hug the ground. The horsemen 
wheel about where exposed, and move farther back ; only the 
gunners are on foot and at work at this moment ; the intervals 
between the reports, that at first could be counted, have now 
become indistinguishable. One vast and continuous peal of 
thunder is booming over the startled valley and stunning the 
ear far back as Brussels. A dense cloud of smoke rises along 
the parallel crests ; but staff officers pressing to the front, see 
what they hate to have to tell — the light troops of Hanover and 
Nassau scurrying back out of the wood of Hougomont followed 
by the fire of the skirmishers of France. It will never do to let 
those fellows have the wood. Lord Welliogton himself spurs 
to the front and orders Major Bull with his howitzer battery to 
shell them out, and in a minute the old forest is filled with 
stifling smoke and whirring fragments of iron, while — look 
again — at the same instant a thin red line springs forward from 
the hedge, and Saltoun's guardsmen dash through the open 
fields and drive into the French with a cheer that can be 
heard back here at La Haye Sainte ; British bayonets do their 
work, and back go Jerome's tirailleurs. Jerome and Foy order 
forward their lines to support the attack, and the assault on 
Hougomont becomes a battle in itself The chateau, the build- 
ings, the entire enclosure are wrapped now in smoke and flame, 
while along the Nivelles road to the west, the batteries and ad~ 
vanced troops are hotly engaged. Foy and Jerome are able to 
quickly concentrate such a mass of fire on these daring guards- 
men, that in turn they are forced back, and slowly and dog- 
gedly, and with heavy loss, they retire from tree to tree, and are 
received within the sheltering walls of the garden. Others, 
closely pursued, succeed in getting into the stone court-yard, 
and here begins a most heroic and determined hand-to-hand 
fight that lasts throughout the battle. No matter what may be 
going on elsewhere, Hougomont, from first to last, is the centre 
of a terrific combat, and, from first to last, England holds her 
own. 

Finding that the chateau is obstinately held, and being 
pressed for time, the emperor now sends word to Ney, to pre- 



WHERE IS THAT DIVISION OF PICTON'S? 41 

pare for the grand attack already planned. It is his purpose to 
hurl the whole right wing upon the plateau between La Haye 
Sainte and Papelotte, to drive the Anglo-allied lines back from 
the crest, sweep them round upon the Brussels road, and off to 
the northwest. In this way he will effectually cut it off from 
Bliicher, drive part of it into the forest of Soignies, the rest out 
across the open fields. He has hit on the true move in every 
way ; it is the very thing. The British right is strongly held 
with guards, guns and heavy infantry in advance, another divi- 
sion of foot in support on the plateau. Hougomont, a breaker 
in front ; Sir Henry Clinton and the reserves at Merbe Braine, a 
rock in rear. The right is too strong ; the left is strangely weak. 
Wellington has only two divisions of foot, flanked by two brig- 
ades of light horse, and the " Union Brigade " in rear. Pape- 
lotte in front is nowhere near as strong a point as Hougomont. 
Nassauers are nowhere near as firm as Britons. The chances are 
indeed in Napoleon's favor, and Ney is to lead. Yet there is a 
point to be considered. One of his first questions that memorable 
morning, after surveying the line with his glass, was : "Where 
is that division of Picton's?" Battered as it had been at Quatre 
Bras, it had been too much for his best fighter, Ney, and he did 
well to ask where it was now to be found. Picton is here, just 
where that grand attack will come. 

Now there is a quick movement back of La Belle Alliance. 
Down come those squadrons we saw massed on the little height, 
and away they go off toward the village of Frischermont, beyond 
Papelotte. What does that mean? an entire division follows. 
The emperor's anxious glances towards the eastern horizon have 
at last fallen on some objects that appear to be troops close 
under a patch of woods five miles away. " Ride thither, Do- 
mont, see who they are ; if Grouchy's people, call them in ; if 
Bliicher's, stand them off Follow and back him up, Subervie." 
Anxious as they all are, there are other things requiring imme- 
diate attention. Soult, after a long inspection through his field- 
glass, pronounces the objects infantry in motion, "probably 
Grouchy." Napoleon hopes so, and turns his attention to Ney's 
grand move. 



42 WATERLOO. 

First, with cracking whips and ringing bugle-calls, ten admi- 
rably handled batteries come trotting forward, and with spirited 
and dashing array move boldly out on the broad valley in front 
of D'Erlon's corps. There is a well-defined ridge midway be- 
tween his lines and ours, and parallel with them, and on that 
ridge, in less than five minutes seventy-four guns have swung 
into battery, and the guns on our left, joining in the grand up- 
roar, have chosen them for their targets, and are hurling shot 
and shell at them as they open fire. Bylandt's long line of in- 
fantry, here in front of the Ohain road, looks anything but 
pleased at that sight, and with grave features General Picton 
watches their evident uneasiness. Then, from the French left, 
comes a beautiful sight. Roussel's entire division of Keller- 
man's cavalry corps marches over, crossing in front of the em- 
peror, and wheels again into line just behind D'Erlon, whose 
four divisions have " ployed " into charging columns and have 
begun their advance. In beautiful order they come forward un- 
til the heads of columns reach that gun-crested ridge, and then 
they halt. Ney sends word to Napoleon that he is ready. 
Soult, just sending off a despatch to Grouchy, looks at his watch 
and notes that it is half-past one. 

The French right has now approached to within 8oo yards 
of the plateau. Aides-de-camp come spurring out from the 
emperor. One rides to General Reille, who gallops to his right 
division and gives some order. Others fly out across the valley 
to Ney, who signals to D'Erlon. Instantly the First corps 
flashes its arms and colors up in air, and with one simulta- 
neous impulse the heads of columns advance, pass between the 
guns, and out to the front. Then "tirailleurs " come springing 
out at the run, a long, lively skirmish-line spreads across their 
fr®nt, and in four grand divisions 18,000 French infantry move 
steadily forward to the assault of Mont St. Jean. Once clear of 
the batteries they increase their fronts, and with waving banners 
and nodding plumes, cheering enthusiastically, D'Erlon's corps 
marches up the slope. 

Durutte's division on the east is presently assailed by a sharp 
musketry fire from the hedges of Papelotte and La Haye; 



FLIGHT OF THE DUTCH-BELGIANS. 43 

Donzelot's division nearest the high-road begins to suffer from 
the orchard of La Haye Sainte ; Durutte sends a brigade at 
Papelotte, Donzelot one at La Haye Sainte. The rest of the 
corps comes on unbroken between them, and now, over their 
heads, the French guns open fire, and our crest is ripped and 
ploughed and torn with shot and shell, while the superb disci- 
pline of Picton's men is sorely tested ; for a few minutes the 
British linesmen are compelled to stand and take the brunt of 
that artillery-fire without hitting back. Then comes a blessed 
relief Bylandt's Dutch-Belgians, as we have seen, had been 
given the post of honor in the front line here to our left. Now 
as the dense masses of D'Erlon come sweeping up the slope, 
and the skirmishers are running back away from them, there 
comes the moment when the brigade must rise and prepare to 
receive the enemy. 

The first thing is to get them to rise. That is effected after 
some vehement language. The next is to get them to receive 
the enemy : that is not effected at all. No sooner do the Dutch- 
Belgians get on their feet and catch sight of D'Erlon's skir- 
mishers preparing to open fire, than with unanimous impulse 
and alacrity they take to their heels, and, despite the jeers and 
curses of Picton's battalions, they go driving to the rear, where 
the cavalry bring them up standing by dint of much hard swear- 
ing and lavish promises to cut them down, and so, cowering 
and worthless, they are huddled there until the battle is over, of 
no further use to anybody. 

And now brave Picton calls on his men. He has only about 
3,000 to oppose to four times as many, but hold that point of 
the plateau he must, or he will die trying it. Splendidly the 
thin red lines spring forward at his voice, Kempt and Pack 
deploy their battalions well forward on the crest abandoned by 
Bylandt, and now they open a crashing fire upon the advancing 
columns. These are so close that the French guns can no 
longer play on the crest, and as their thunder dies away, the 
ringing cheers of the Frenchmen are heard in their stead, and 
the throbbing roll of their drums. " Forward ! forward ! " 
"Vive I'Empereur! " are the cries as the deep columns steadily 



44 WATERLOO. 

near the crest. They are within an hundred yards, now and 
then " halt " rings out, and the colonels can be heard shoutint; 
the orders to deploy into line on the leading battalions. Oh, 
glorious opportunity for Picton ! He is with Kempt's brigade 
at the moment. " Fire ! " he shouts, and then as the crashing 
volley answers, and before the smoke has cleared away, his 
voice again rings exultantly along the line, " Charge ! Charge ! 
Hurrah ! " and with the half-savage cry of the Highlanders, and 
the deep-throated cheer of the British, Kempt's men dash in 
with the bayonet, Picton with them. 

Accustomed to carry all before them, amazed at this daring 
dash by so small a force, the French advance recoils, falls back 
on the rear regiments; great confusion ensues for a few moments, 
in the midst of which Picton's gallant men with butt and bayo- 
net hammer and prod at all who stand, and soon, strange as it 
may seem, send the heavy column reeling down the slope; and 
just as Picton in soldierly delight is applauding and cheering 
them on, his sword is seen to drop — his hand to seek his tem- 
ple, and before his officers can reach him, the hero of the Penin- 
sula, " Fighting Picton," reels and topples from his saddle, shot 
dead by a muskct-ball. Terribly wounded at Quartre Bras two 
days before, he had concealed it that he might take part in the 
greater combat, and Waterloo is the hero's closing battle. 

Even his death, however, cannot break the spirit of that brig- 
ade of Kempt. The Twenty-eighth and Seventy-ninth suffer 
severely, but hold the ground they have won ; but where is 
Pack and his still more distinguished command? Pack's brigade 
has three Scotch regiments — the First " Royal Scots," the Forty- 
second (Black Watch) and Ninety-second Highlanders — and the 
strong Forty-fourth British to complete his line. When Kempt 
charged, Pack had not advanced. There were two heavy col- 
umns advancing upon him, the French divisions of Alix and 
Marcognet, and holding his men in readiness. Pack waited until 
the heads of their columns had burst through the Hanoverian 
battery on the crest, had crossed the road to Wavre, and halted to 
form on the northern edge ; then, while they were in the confusion 
caused by the deep cut through which that cross-road here runs, 



THE EAGLES OF FRANCE ON MONT ST. JEAN. ' 45 

he gave the order to fire, and the volleys of Scotland swept 
down hundreds of the men who had fought at Austerlitz, Jena, 
Eylau, Friedland, Wagram and Leipsic, only to meet their 
soldier's death here on the heights of Waterloo. Quickly, Alix 
and Marcognet hurried on their rear regiments, and cheering 
like mad the French divisions swarmed over the crest, over the 
Ohain road, and burst with their deadly volleys full in upon the 
British left, piercing the wing, and gaining firm foothold on the 
plateau. Watching eagerly from the Rossomme heights, Napo- 
leon snapped shut his telescope with an eager light in his eyes. 
The Eagles of France, the glorious tricolor, waved on Mont St. 
Jean. He could see them through the battle-smoke. Now 
hold it ! D'Erlon. Hold it, Ney, and all will be well. That 
magnificent advance is a success then, for on the right Durutte 
has carried Papelotte and La Haye. 

Along the highway Donzelot has enveloped La Haye Sainte, 
and now Roussel's glittering cuirassiers cross the high-road, 
wheel to the north and come at thundering gallop up the slope. 
The batteries at the crest blaze at them with shell and grape as 
they come, but, though many a gap is torn through the charging 
ranks, there is no slacking of their speed. With the long, black, 
horse-hair plumes streaming in the wind, with flashing sabres up- 
lifted they gain the crest just to the west of the high-road, sweep 
through the batteries on the ridge, over it they go, and then, in 
full sight of the red-clad squares, they come suddenly upon that 
low-lying cross-road — "the sunken road of Ohain" it is called 
by Victor Hugo — the half-hidden, unpaved country highway to 
Wavre from the Nivelles road back of Hougomont. It throws 
them into some disorder, but hundreds plunge in, scramble up 
on the other side — hundreds cross with no difficulty whatever — 
but their way is stopped; and just as they are reforming under 
fire on the northern side, there comes a loud tan-ta-ra of cavalry 
trumpets, a thunder of massive hoofs, and with superb burst of 
speed and a thrilling British cheer, the guardsmen, the gallants of 
England, Lord Somerset's magnificent household brigade, charge 
home upon the head of the French division, and the cuirassiers 
are overturned and borne back in the rush. Some gallop down 
36 



46 



WATERLOO. 



the slopes toward Bachelu's division ; others, closely pursued by 
the Second Life-Guard, speed away across the highway. Skir- 
mishers and light troops, throwing themselves flat to escape the 
rush, and then rallying among the lines of Donzelot and Alix, 
they turn upon their pursuers. Almost at the same instant that 
the household heavies sweep forward in their first splendid charge, 
the "Union Brigade" of Ponsonby comes tearing to the front, 
heading squarely for the cheering lines of Alix and Marcognet. 
The Scots Greys are on their left, nearest the lines of Pack's 
Highlanders as they ride up at thundering gallop, and as the 
two corps recognize one another, there goes up a glorious cry — 
"Scotland forever!" and the wild skirl of the bag-pipes salutes 
the dashing horsemen. Pack can stand it no longer. " Forward, 
lads. /;/ with them ! " and the Highland bayonets leap to the 
front, and now Royals, Inniskillings, Scots and Highlanders — all 
are bursting on the lines of France, and the tricolor and the 
eagles are swept away. "Those terrible gray horses," mutters 
the emperor, as he gazes in disquiet at this new and unlooked- 
for tragedy. In vain the Frenchmen strive to resist the shock. 
Not looking for cavalry attack, there had been no time to form 
squares ; and, despite devoted heroism on part of officers and 
men, the divisions that so proudly won the heights so short 
a while ago are now being driven backward down the slopes. 

Desperate fighting, hand-to-hand combats are seen on every 
side. It is here that Shaw, the giant pugilist and swordsman of 
the Second Life-Guard, after sabring several antagonists to death, 
is shot dead by the bullet of a cavalry carbine. (Fiction has 
stretched him dead way over at Hougomont — killed by a little 
drummer-boy. Fact reserves him to die with his regiment on 
the other side of the field, shot by a full-fledged cuirassier.) 
Sergeant Ewart, of the Scots Greys, captures the prized eagle of 
the French Forty-fifth — " the Invincibles." Captain Clark, of the 
Royals, cuts down the standard-bearer of the 105th and secures 
the Empress Maria Louisa's standard. The Inniskillings, whose 
charge was impeded by infantry forming line, reached the Wavre 
road after the Royals and Greys had crossed it. Furious at 
being left behind, the Paddies could hardly wait to form line be- 



WHERE IS GROUCHY? 49 

fore again rushing to the charge. The Hnes of the Fifty-fourth 
and Fifty-fifth regiments of France were just in front of them as 
they swept across the road. Somebody in civilian's dress, sitting 
there on horseback, called out, " Now's your time!" and with a 
savage yell the Irish squadrons whirled in on the foe, and D'Er- 
lon's centre is gone. The somebody in plain clothes turns out 
to be the Duke of Richmond. He has no earthly business there, 
but, being in Brussels, he rides out to the front with all an Eng- 
lishman's love for seeing a square fight ; and, ignoring all possi- 
bility of having his own head knocked off, he is delightedly 
watching the progress of the battle. 

Picton's little division, aided by the prompt and powerful onset, 
has checked D'Erlon's advance and turned the grand assault on 
the British left into a rout. With dismay Napoleon beholds that 
admirable First corps streaming back down the slopes, beaten ; 
and now worse yet, a prisoner, a Prussian hussar, is sent in from 
the distant right by General Domont, who says that Bliicher's 
men are swarming in those woods, and Domont confirms it. 
Where then is Grouchy ? 

But now comes an unlooked-for chance for revenge. Superb 
fighters as they are, English cavalry leaders often lack common 
sense, and from being too brave personally, the noble Lord Ux- 
bridge comes within an ace of sacrificing the heavy brigades. He 
had given general instructions to the leaders of the light horse, 
Grant, Vivian, Vandeleur and Dornberg, to support and follow up 
the moves of the " heavies," but the light brigades were far to the 
flanks or rear, and when the Household and the Unions made 
their glorious charge, Lord Uxbridge found himself unable to 
resist the longing to lead them, and so placed himself at the head 
of the " Second Life," was presently swallowed up in the battle 
and unable to see what was going on except immediately around 
him. It is all very well for a brigade commander to charge at 
the head of his brigade; but for the chief of cavalry of an entire 
army to unite his fortunes with those of some one command and 
let the rest of the field take care of itself is all wrong. Vivian 
and Vandeleur did hasten to their right when they saw the 
charge of the Srots Greys, and did do some superb charging of 



50 WATERLOO. 

their own ; but too late. The seven regiments of heavies burst 
through everything in front of them, pursued the cuirassiers 
down the slopes, had a mad race to see which should first reach 
the main lines of the French ; the " First Life " tore through 
Bachelu's intervals ; the Second got frightfully tangled up with 
the retreating cuirassiers ; the Royals dashed on and over the 
rallying infantry, and the Greys and Inniskillings, backing one 
another up in any daring or devilment as of old, had rushed in 
among the batteries on the ridge, and, every man for himself, 
were furiously riding to and fro, hacking gunners, stabbing 
horses, cutting traces, but utterly forgetting their formation. In 
vain. Lord Uxbridge shouted himself hoarse and sounded his 
trumpets in the effort to halt and reform his heavies. He had 
started them on their wild charge ; but nothing could stop them 
short of the very centre of the French. Some of them rode up 
to the muzzles of the guns far to the rear in reserve, and then, 
horses and men utterly blown and exhausted, attempted to ride 
back. The whole field of battle from La Belle Alliance eastward 
was covered with squads and sections or disordered groups of 
English horsemen confusedly intermingled, and now the fresh 
cavalry of the French right and the second lines spur down in 
serried ranks upon them. Lancers, chasseurs, cuirassiers charge 
and hem them in, and before Vivian or Vandelcur can begin to 
reach them the havoc is fearful ; the rash valor of the British 
" heavies " meets with its own retribution. The gallant leader 
of the Union brigade, Sir William Ponsonby, is surrounded and 
thrust to death with lances. His brave namesake, Colonel Fred. 
Ponsonby, charging to the rescue with the Twelfth light dragoons, 
is lanced, sabred and left for dead on the field. Colonel Hay, of 
the Sixteenth light dragoons, is desperately wounded. Colonel 
Hamilton, Scots Greys, is last seen alive riding squarely into the 
French reserves at Rossomme. Colonel Fuller, King's Dragoon 
guards, is killed almost at the emperor's feet, back of La Belle 
Alliance; and the grand charge of Lord Uxbridge and his cavalry 
which began in triumph ends in disaster; but not until the 
French assault on Mont St. Jean is utterly defeated. D'Erlon's 
corps has lost 3,000 men, forty guns and two eagles, the sacred 
emblems of the empire. 



INEFFECTUAL ASSAULTS ON HOUGOMONT. 5 1 

So ends the second phase of Waterloo. " Hard pounding, 
gentlemen," says the Duke of Wellington to his staff. " Let us 
see who can pound the longest." It is nearly three o'clock and 
nobody's battle yet. Both Napoleon and Wellington are looking 
eagerly eastward now. 

At three o'clock a desperate attempt is made to carry Hougo- 
mont by assault. For five hours that terrible fight has been 
going on within the walls, and still the little brigade of guards- 
men, cruelly thinned by this time, holds its post. Byng man- 
ages to get in some reinforcements, and then from over on the 
open plain, Bachelu's division of the French Second corps attacks 
on the east side, while Jerome Buonaparte encloses the walls on 
south and west; but Bachelu's men have to move out under the 
fire of the guns on the crest. Cleves' and Bull's howitzers and 
light guns deluge them with grape, and no mortal can stand it. 
Bachelu is put to rout, and Napoleon sees the second attack 
frustrated. Then he tries setting fire to the buildings : " all is 
fair in war;" but though flame and smoke blister the hands and 
faces of the defenders, and add to the terrible thirst and torture 
of the wounded, it is useless ; those guardsmen won't even be 
burned out. 

Four o'clock has come. The British left has stood firm against 
D'Erlon's assault. Hougomont is still blazing defiance. Napoleon 
resolves on trying a massive cavalry attack upon the allied right 
centre. First he orders up all his guns, and for twenty minutes 
the most tremendous cannonade these veterans have ever heard, 
stuns their ears and shakes the very earth. Two hundred and 
fifty guns in the confined fronts, between Hougomont and La 
Haye Sainte, are firing as rapidly as they can be handled. On 
the plateau the English and Germans lie prone upon the ground, 
all except the gunners, who ply their work with tireless energy. 
Then, under cover of this fire, Milhaud's division of cuirassiers^ 
and Lefebvre-Desnouette's gallantly attired light horse of the 
guard, move over in front of Reille's corps. In deep charging 
columns they yet cover the open ground from the Charleroi 
road to the farm enclosure, and now with ringing trumpet-call 
they take the trot and sweep steadily up the slopes ; the French 



52 WATERLOO. 

guns cease firing ; the British infantry spring to their feet and 
form squares ; the gunners depress their muzzles and redouble 
the rapidity of their fire. The duke himself gallops to the bat- 
teries. " Give them grape until they are right on you, then 
run for the squares," he .says, and the guns blaze and bellow 
their answer. Milhaud's advance is glorious. He has reached 
the slope now and quickened the pace to the gallop. The roar 
as of a mighty storm is heard as the earth resounds under the 
blows of forty thousand iron hoofs, and nearer, nearer, they 
come till " Charge ! " is the cry, and " in they burst and on they 
rush," through and over the batteries, into aijd over that sunken 
road, where many are hurled to earth and crushed and beaten 
to death, and then they sweep down upon the steadfast squares. 
Those kneeling Saxons are solid as Hougomont ; the lines of 
bristling steel neither bend nor break ; the volleys flash in the 
very faces of the raging troopers, tumbling them to earth, driv- 
ing them to cover, and then Somerset comes charging with the 
heavies, and Milhaud and Desnouette, discomfited, ride back as 
best they can. " Ney. it must be done ! " is Napoleon's emphatic 
order, and once more the grand cuirassiers form. This time 
Kellerman's whole corps rides out to join. Guyot's heavy divi- 
sion is added. It is all the chivalry of France that sweeps to the 
front. It is tossed with lavish hand upon the guns of the foe. 
Call in every horseman. Pack that ground with cuirassier and 
dragoon. Cover every yard of it with mounted men, then, like 
huge, massive, gigantic phalanx, push them in. It must prevail. 
It must sweep these squares from off the plain. If not — 

This is the emperor's supreme effort — the grand cavalry attack 
of Waterloo ; and this, like its preface, is heralded by a tremen- 
dous cannonade. Well may England tremble, whether she does 
or not, for war has seen nothing like this. In one compact mass, 
that covers the whole field west of the high road, the cavalry of 
France advances to the charge. 

It mounts the slope, it closes in its gaps and rents, it bursts 
into headlong rush as it crowns the height ; it thunders through 
the batteries and over the prostrate wretches in that death-trap 
of a road ; it dashes on those calmly kneeling squares ; it swerves 



BLUCHER APPEARS ON THE FRENCH RIGHT. 53 

before their flashing steel ; it crowds, and bursts, and huddles 
through between their posts, but it never breaks one. Its charge 
is thrown away. The cavalry corps of France is broken up into 
hundreds of squadrons or detachments, drifting back under the 
concentrated fire of the British guns. After half an hour's wild 
riding, charging and shouting on the plateau, they are driven 
back, leaving the linesmen as firm as when they came. 

Six o'clock ; and now, what next ? Look eastward : out 
beyond Papelotte and La Haye ; out beyond Frischermont, and 
what see we there ? Domont's and Subervie's squadrons slowly 
falling back before long lines of dark-clad horsemen. Biilow's 
corps of Prussians is driving in the slender defence of the French 
right. Behind comes line after line, squadron after squadron 
bursting forth from the sheltering woods. Bliicher has come, 
true to his promise ; and Wellington, who an hour ago almost 
despairingly prayed, " Oh, for night or Bliicher," now sees vic- 
tory in his grasp. Ney has made one great assault of skirmisli- 
ers ; has forced forward in dispersed order the divisions of Don- 
zelot and Alix upon La Haye Sainte, and at last succeeded in 
wresting it from its little garrison. He has crowned the heights 
and opened a galling fire on the British battalions still in squares, 
that resisted the attacks of the last remnants of the French 
cavalry. All the field west of the high-road is disorder and con- 
fusion, but now the squares wheel forward into line, and, rejoiced 
to once more take the offensive, the British infantry come cheer- 
ing forward, driving at the French "tirailleurs'" with the bayonet. 
Mont St. Jean at last is clear of living foes, and Napoleon, at- 
tacked in force on his right by fresh and vigorous enemies, re- 
pulsed everywhere in front, finds that he is reduced to the last 
hope — his grand, his hitherto unconquerable guard. 

Grouchy has failed him, for here is Bliicher with, apparently, 
his whole command. Grouchy, instead of keeping well over to 
his own left, and thus being ever ready to interpose between the 
Prussians and his emperor, has blindly followed on the trail of 
their retreat, has failed to catch them until this very morning, 
and by that time the vehement energy and zeal of raging old 
Marshal " Vorwaerts " have enabled him to rally and restore confi- 



54 



WATERLOO. 



dence to his men, to face them westward, to march in three close 
columns through the woods from Wavre towards Waterloo. 
One division is left to delay and play with Grouchy, and so, in- 
stead of being cut off, as Napoleon had ordered and intended, 
the Prussian army itself cuts off. Grouchy is separated from 
Napoleon in this his supreme hour of need. 

At half-past six Lobau's corps, over near Planchenoit, facing 
east, is sternly striving to hold back the overpowering numbers 
of the rapidly arriving Prussians. The relics of the French right 
are faced to the east to fight on the defensive. The Old and 
Middle Guard of the emperor march down from Rossomme to 
the height just back of Belle Alliance, and Napoleon looks upon 
them with eyes that have lost all their light and hope and fire, 
but none of their set purpose. Duhesme, with the Young Guard, 
has gone to Planchenoit to hold it to the last. Here are only 
the veterans ; here are Drouot, Friant and Morand, 

There is one hope left. Worn out with their long day of 
severe and desperate fighting, the British infantry, that have so 
obstinately defied his cuirassiers, are now in no condition to 
withstand his guards. If the guard can gain the plateau they 
must sweep it ; and, with that- done, he can rally all his guns 
and cavalry, he can still burst through between Wellington and 
Bliicher, and, holding the latter, can drive the former back on 
Brussels, then turn on the Prussian and crush him with the 
dawn. It is a desperate hope, but desperate is his need. 

Things are no less desperate in the English lines. They have 
superbly defended their position through the livelong day, but 
they are fearfully reduced in numbers. The casualties of battle 
have reduced regiments to mere squads. The heavy brigades 
can only muster two squadrons, but they have not lost a gun 
nor an inch of ground on the plateau. Still — can they stand one 
more charge ? 

It is seven o'clock. The sun, that all day long has been ob- 
scured by the dense clouds o'erhead, is sinking low towards the 
murky west and beginning to burst through as though to have 
one last look at the fearful scene before dropping below the 
horizon. Napoleon has sent for Ney ; all the cavalry that can 



THE OLD GUARD TO THE FRONT. 



55 



be rallied, all the guns, all the infantry are urged to face once 
more toward that smoke-crowned plateau, and follow and sup- 
port the flower of the army — the Imperial Guard of France. 
Ten of its battalions are to make the assault, two only remaia 
with the emperor in reserve. To animate them to hope and one 
grand effort, the emperor sends his aides galloping along the 
dejected lines to shout the glad tidings that Grouchy had ar- 
rived, and now, one charge and all would be well. He lied, and 
knew it, for Grouchy was far away as victory. But once more 
the guns were run to the front, and for the fourth time that day 
of ceaseless thunder, the combined batteries of France stormed 
at the heights of St. Jean, and to the music of their awful salute 
the guard formed its columns of attack. One was to pass up 
parallel with the highway and assault close to the British centre; 
the other, skirting the enclosure of Hougomont, was to storm 
the heights now held by Maitland and the Grenadier Guard. 
Napoleon himself gallops forward to a little eminence north of 
La Belle Alliance; Ney rides at their head ; all is ready; and now 
the last hope of the empire is carried forward on those sacred 
eagles. In proud array, in grim silence, in calm and stately 
movement the devoted battalions march forth to their immortal 
attack. The right column passes close under the knoll on which 
Napoleon has taken his post. All eyes, kindling with devotion, 
are fixed one moment upon him ; with significant gesture he 
points to the fire-flashing crest in front, and a mighty shout of 
Vn'r Vcmpcrcjir is the stirring and enthusiastic reply. The 
music of all others that has been dearest to his war-like soul, 
it bursts for the last time upon his ears. He has received the 
last salute of the " Old Guard." 

"Ave Caesar, morituri te salutamus," the gladiators of Rome 
shouted in unison as they gazed from the bloody sands of the 
arena to the purple and pomp of the imperial throne. " Long 
live Napoleon " is the battle-cry of the guards of France as they 
march into their death. 

All the world knows the story. Why tell it here ? Far better 
would it have been for the fame of Buonaparte had he spared 
them this test of heroic devotion, or, having demanded it of 



56 WATERLOO. 

them, had he taken his own place, sword in hand, at their head. 
He simply drove them into their annihilation, and from this dis- 
tant height watched their sublime sacrifice. 

Preceded by throngs of skirmishers and light troops, sup- 
ported on the right by Donzelot and the remains of Alix's divi- 
sion, but unprotected on the left, the two stately columns in the 
great bearskin shakos, their dark blue uniforms faced with red 
and crossed by broad white belts supporting the heavy short 
sword and cartridge box, their legs encased in snugly fitting 
campaign gaiters and breeches, once white, now stained by the 
muddy soil of Belgium, great coats rolled, knapsacks trimly 
packed, canteens and haversacks swinging at their sides, the 
guards had marched forward to their assigned positions. There 
some old soldiers, grimly eying the smoke-wreathed crest, un- 
slung and cast aside knapsacks and overcoats. Then came the 
signal, "Forward." 

Ney and Friant, riding at the head of the right-hand column, 
lower their swords in salute as they pass the emperor. Four 
battalions in mass are with them, their drummers beating the 
*' pas de cliargd' They are the men of the Third regiments of 
grenadiers and chasseurs, old and middle guardsmen serving 
together. The left-hand column of six battalions does not move 
for some few minutes yet. It is to be kept a little in rear of 
Ney so as to form a wedge-like front to the attack. Drouot and 
Morand are its leaders, and the First and Fourth regiments of 
chasseurs and the Fourth grenadiers make it up. The First 
grenadiers are with Napoleon. A great throng of light troops 
spring forward on the left and front. Donzelot's lines charge on 
the right. The shades of evening are just descending, and the 
setting sun that all day long has refused its rays, throws a part- 
ing halo over the arms and banners it had smiled upon at 
Austerlitz ; then it sinks upon them, forever. 

Riding from battery to battery the Iron Duke in person directs 
their fire to be concentrated on the leading column of bearskins — 
that which Ney and Friant are leading ; and in one moment, 
solid .shot, shell and grape are tearing their way through the 
steady ranks; but steady they continue: no halt, no break, no 



FRIANT DIES WITH THE OLD GUARD. 59 

waver; the stern, set faces of the old guardsmen, peering out 
through the smoke, are fixed on those gallant forms in front, on 
the flashing swords of Ney and Friant. Fearful as is the havoc 
in the ranks, it seems only to add to their fervor and enthusiasm. 
Men who were grimly silent a few moments before, now burst 
into cheers of defiance. Suddenly Ney goes down, but, "bravest 
of the brave," he springs to his feet, leaving his slaughtered 
horse, and facing his men to show himself unhurt, cheers them 
forward, waving his sword, while backing up the slope. Many 
a man faces death with calmness. " Only Ney," said Napoleon, 
"could preserve his perfect coolness with his back to the 
storm," and the storm of grape and canister is now frightful. 
Friant is shot down — Friant who with Davout held the right at 
Austerlitz, and again at Auerstadt — dies with the old guard at 
Waterloo. Michel, colonel of the Third chasseurs, is killed out- 
right. General De Morvan springs forward in his place, and the 
brigade moves on. Captains and lieutenants leap to the front. 
Ney leads on foot. At last, with only one-half their number 
left, the right column reaches the summit, bursts forward 
through the guns, and, to the amaze of the officers, sees nothing 
but low hanging smoke in front. Only for an instant, though. 
A voice is heard that rings through the battle-cloud like a 
trumpet call. "Up, guards, and at them!" and from the trench 
of that fatal Ohain road the grenadiers of England in tall bear- 
skins like their own, in brilliant uniform, spring to their feet with 
four deep ranks, take low, steady aim, then one crashing volley 
bursts from the line, and right there on the crest three hundred 
more of the devoted Imperial Guard are stretched lifeless on the 
sward. Then Maitland's men dash forward with levelled bayo- 
nets, and the guards of France and England grapple on the 
ridge. The fight is short and desperate. The Frenchmen are 
surrounded by vomiting guns and howitzers on both flanks, by 
these vigorous grenadiers in front, by swarms of light troops 
pouring into them their fire, and they simply melt away. In five 
minutes, just before eight o'clock, the first column is a shattered 
and drifting wreck falling slowly back towards Belle Alliance. 
Then comes the second's turn. It has passed Hougomont. It 



6o WATERLOO. 

can see nothino', throufjh the dense smoke, of the fate of its 
comrade column. It directs its march upon that point of the 
British-aUied hne where the outward curve begins that carries 
it nearer the chateau. For a few minutes it escapes the fearful 
storm of grape and canister that has been deluging the first since 
it got within five hundred yards of the crest ; but now all of a 
sudden it is rent and torn in every direction, the shots are 
showered in from every side. Still the column forges ahead, 
shouting its hoarse cry of " Vive I'cvipercury Its head is at 
last at the crest, when here the infantry of Adam's brigade 
changes front forward, and covers its entire left flank. Two light 
batteries limber up, gallop forward, and, halting on Adam's right, 
pour in rapid rounds of grape and canister from the short range 
of fifty paces, tearing the columns to shreds. Other batteries on 
the right front are pushed forward, and drive their hot muzzles 
into the very ranks ; while, swarming upon them, right, left, 
front and everywhere, officers and men confusedly intermingled, 
the English and Hanoverians surround them with pitiless fire. 
The guard recoils, falls back an hundred yards to shake loose 
its tormentors, and strives to deploy to answer that hell of fire ; 
but now the batteries mow it down, and the Fifty-second, 
Seventy-first and Ninety-fifth British swoop down in daring 
charge. What is left of the four leading battalions is brushed 
away across the front towards the high-road, and thence falls 
back utterly scattered and broken towards the mound, where, 
grief-stricken and despairing. Napoleon has witnessed the 
scene. 

Two battalions still remain, alone, defiant, dying out there on 
the smoke-covered slopes. All around them the prostrate 
wrecks of the Imperial Guard ; all beyond, the advancing circle 
of triumphant enemies. Thrilled with admiration at the sight 
of their heroism, an English general shouts, " Brave French- 
men, surrender," and Cambronne, commanding this last rem- 
nant of the dying guard, hisses back the answer that Hugo has 
made immortal; and then the word is given, the death-dealing 
volleys once more ring out their peal, the trumpets of England 
and Hanover sound the advance, and, cheering with mad 



THE FRENCH ARMY CUT TO PIECES. 6 1 

triumph, the Hnes of Wellington at last sweep forward down the 
slopes they have so long defended. 

At quarter past eight the French army is in full retreat, and 
Napoleon, after having placed himself in front of his last reserve 
and ordered it to follow him, is torn from his suicidal purpose 
and led from the field by his still devoted staff It is not quite 
dark, when, just beyond the inn of La Belle Alliance, Welling- 
ton and Bliicher meet and exchange brief congratulations. 
The latter, but for whose arrival the British could have held out 
no longer, points to the name of the little hostelrie and jubi- 
lantly suggests it as most appropriate for the battle so gloriously 
won in conjunction; and then dashes forward in that merciless 
and death-dealing pursuit that completes the wreck of Napo- 
leon. Wellington, calmly riding back over the field of his most 
magnificent stand and final triumph, spends the night at the 
little hamlet south of the forest of Soignies, and gives thereby 
the name by which this most decisive battle will ever be known, 
that of Waterloo. 

The world's history can tell of none in which the issues in- 
volved were of greater moment, or the results of which were 
more immediate, more sweeping, more decisive; but it was won 
at fearful cost. 

England lost in killed, 142 officers and 2,341 men: in 
wounded, 550 officers and 7,327 men; in missing, 14 officers 
and 1,056 men. This includes the losses of the Hanoverians, 
Brunswickers, etc. ; and, added to the t.ooo lost by the Dutch- 
Belgians (mainly under the indefinite he^d of "missing"), gives 
a total loss in the army of the Duke of Wellington of 14,728. 
Bluchers loss, killed, wounded and missing, was 6,775 ) making 
the total loss of the allies, 21,503. 

The loss of the French army has never been accurately com- 
puted. It was almost totally destroyed in the battle and the 
pursuit that followed. All of their artillery, ammunition wagons, 
baggage and supplies fell into the hands of the victors. It is 
safe to say that 30,000 Frenchmen were killed, wounded or 
prisoners, and that only a wreck of the Grand Army got back 
behind the Sambre. As for Napoleon, his last hope was gone. 



62 



WATERLOO. 



July found him a prisoner in British hands ; OctoDer a broken 
exile on the lonely rock of St. Helena, a thousand miles from 
shore, and there, after six years of mental suffering and rack- 
ing disease, his proud spirit took its flight, and the most re- 
nowned soldier the world has ever known was lowered to his 
grave. 





THE ALAMO. 

1836 

BY JAMES H. VVILLARD. 

N the noble and romantic history of Te^.a?, "oo 
portion is more interesting to the reader, than 
that which relates the struggles of the Texaus 
to free themselves from the rule of Mexico. 

The Texan revolution had drawn to itself, 
more than the number of men of talent, 
who are usually attracted by the stirring events 
such movements promise. Yet, the cause 
looked almost hopeless as the Texan leaders — 
somewhat torn by dissensions among themselves, were assem- 
bled before San Antonio de Bexar on the evening of December 
4th, 1835. The arrival of a scout bringing information regarding 
the garrison, so changed the current of feeling, that Colonel Ben- 
jamin R. Milam cried aloud " who will go with old Ben Milam 
into San Antonio ? " An enthusiastic organization was effected, 
and an attacking party formed, which, in two divisions made an 
assault upon the town just before daylight on the following 
morning. 

Having forced an entrance into the city, the Texans found 
themselves confronted by breastworks and batteries ; hand to 
hand conflicts ensued, in which the Texans silenced the Mexican 
artillery by their rifle fire. At night they strengthened the po- 
sitions they had won. On the 6th, a brisk fire of small arms 
was kept up from the buildings in which the opposing forces 
had entrenched themselves. On the 7th, the Texans gained 
material advantages, but on that day, Colonel Milam was in= 
stantly killed by a rifle-ball. A row of houses was taken from 
4 • (65) 



66 THE' ALAMO. 

the Mexicans on the 8th. These were separated by thick 
walls, which the Texans pierced, and so fought their way from 
room to room. That night the Texans dislodged the enemy 
from a strong building known as the " Priest's House," which 
commanded the Plaza. This virtually gave the Texans posses- 
sion of the town, and on the following day General Cos, the 
Mexican commander, agreed to capitulate. 

The articles of capitulation were agreed upon, on the loth. 
Tlie terms were humane. Officers and men were allowed to re- 
tire with their private property ; all public property to belong 
to the victors. The Mexican sick and wounded were left be- 
hind, and were well cared for. General Cos withdrew from 
San Antonio on the 14th, and Colonel Johnson and a force of 
Texans garrisoned the Alamo. 

March 2d, 1836, witnessed the birth of the new republic. 
Political connection with Mexico was declared forever at an end. 
As General Santa Anna, the Mexican President, was approach- 
ing with a well-appointed army, General Sam Houston was 
chosen to the responsible office of Commander-in-Chief of the 
Texan forces, which had been augmented by energetic organiza- 
tion. Lieutenant-Colonel Travis with some thirty men, and 
Colonel James Bowie with about the same number, were sent 
by General Houston to San Antonio ; and now another hero, 
David Crockett, with a few companions, joined them in time to 
share their glorious fate in the Alamo. 

Opposite San Antonio, where the river of the same name 
makes the remarkable bend that encloses a portion of the town, 
rises the ancient mission of the Alamo. Here the river is some 
sixty feet in width and for the most part shallow. The country 
around is flat, and ditches on both sides of the river were used 
for the purpose of irrigating the land, and also for defence. 
Two aqueducts, running on either side of the walls, supplied 
the Alamo with water. The walls, though thick, were those of a 
mission, not a fortress. Four pieces of artillery faced the town, 
four to the north. Two were by the side of a church that con- 
tained the magazine and soldiers' quarters ; four defended the 
gate that faced the bridge leading across the river to San An- 



THE LETTER OF A HERO, ^7 

tonio. A hospital, armory and stables for horses were withir, 
the walls. Colonel Travis had strengthened his defences when- 
ever possible, but he was inadequately provided with men, 
ammunition and provisions. 

General Santa Anna occupied San Antonio on the afternoon 
of February 23d ; the few Texans who comprised the feeble 
garrison, retiring in good order, across the river to the Alamo. 
The Mexican general then demanded the unqualified surrender 
of the Texan position and its defenders. Travis' reply was un- 
compromising and defiant — ? chot from the fort. Then a blood- 
red flag was raised over San Anionic, and the Mexican attack 
began. 

As Santa Anna intended to reduce the Alamo by slow ap- 
proaches, the earlier stages of the bombardp^ent were not severe ; 
but Travis, realizing that his situation borde^'ed nn the desperate 
sent an express to Colonel Fannin at Goliad, wi*^h a strong ap- 
peal for aid, yet declaring that he would never retr'^at. lliis 
letter, which reached Colonel Fannin on the 25th, showed the 
determination of the heroic band to defend the liberties of the 
new republic to the last drop of blood in their veins ; and was 
as follows : 

" CoMMANDENCY OF THE Alamo, Bexar, February 24, 1 836. 
" Fellow Citizens and Compatriots : I am besieged by a 
thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have 
sustained a continued bombardment for twenty-four hours, and 
have not lost a man. The enemy have demanded a surrender 
at discretion ; otherwise the garrison is to be put to the sword, 
if the place is taken. I have answered the summons with a 
cannon-shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. 
/ s/iail never siirrendey or retreat. Then I call on you in the 
name of liberty, of patriotism, and everything dear to the 
American character, to come to our aid with all despatch. The 
enemy is receiving reinforcements, daily, and will no doubt in- 
crease to three or four thousand in four or five days. Though 
this call many be neglected, I am determined to sustain my- 
self as long as possible, and die like a soldier who never forgets 



68 THE ALAMO. 

what is due to his own honor and that of his country. Victory 
or death ! 

" VV. Barret Travis, Lieutenant- Colonel Commanding. 
" P. S. — The Lord is on our side. When the enemy appeared 
ill sight, we had not three bushels of corn. We have since 
found in deserted houses, eighty or ninety bushels, and got into 
the walls twenty or thirty head of beeves. T." 

Led by Santa Anna in person, the Mexican forces crossed the 
river on the 25th, meeting with such strong resistance, however, 
that they were unable until night, to erect a battery in front of 
the gate of the Alamo. Under cover of the darkness, and the 
protection afforded by some old houses between the river and 
the fort, the Mexicans succeeded in planting this battery and 
also another, some thousand yards to the southeast. Travis 
sallied out and set fire to a few wooden houses and straw huts 
in the vicinity of the walls, and on the night of the following 
day again succeeded in burning more houses that could have 
afforded protection to the enemy. This day and the one 
following were occupied in skirmishing, with but little effect 
upon either side. On the 28th, Travis strengthened the walls 
of the fort by throwing up dirt on the inside; the Mexicans 
erected another battery and attempted to cut off the water 
supply of the Texans. On the same day. Colonel Fannin set 
out from Goliad to aid the beleaguered garrison, but a succession 
of disasters and lack of provisions prevented more than a slight 
advance. After a council of war had been held, it was decided 
the detatchment should return to Goliad, which was done. 

A reinforcement of thirty-two men under Captain John W. 
Smith, succeeded in reaching the Alamo, on March 1st. This 
brought the effective force of Travis' command to 188 men. 
With a view to husbanding their ammunition, which was run- 
ning low, the Texans seldom replied to the Mexican guns which 
kept up an almost continuous fire, day by day. On the 3d, the 
Mexicans planted another battery, this time within musket-shot 
of the fort. In his sore perplexity, Travis now despatched a 
courier to the president of the convention, bearing a last 




THE FAT T. OF THE ALAMO. 



A COUNCIL OF WAR. 7 1 

appeal, which breathed his lofty determination to maintam the 
position. A sally from the fort, resulting in a skirmish with the 
Mexican outpost, was made at night. 

On the 4th, Santa Anna called a council of war, and the 
assault of the Alamo was decided upon. The fort was to be car- 
ried by storm, as soon as the necessary preparations could be 
made. An army of 4,000 well-equipped troops backed by artillery, 
was to be thrown against Travis' handful of heroes, hungry and 
worn-out with incessant watching. 

Shortly after midnight, on Sunday, March 6th, the devoted 
band in the old Mission were completely surrounded by their 
foes. The Mexican infantry carried scaling ladders ; cavalry 
was posted to cut them down if they flinched from their task. 
As the circle around the fort rapidly contracted, the Texans 
poured upon the advancing columns a murderous fire from ar- 
tillery and small arms. It was daylight when the first ladders 
were placed against the walls, but the assailants were beaten 
back. The second attempt to reach the top of the walls, was 
also repulsed. On the third attempt, the enemy bore down 
upon the exhausted defenders in such numbers, that repulse was 
Impossible. Unable to withstand such overwhelming odds die 
Texans were borne back into the fort, now filled with the 
enemy. 

With clubbed guns, the survivors fought on until nearly the 
whole number were cut down. If the cry for quarter was 
raised, none heeded it. Red as the flag on the church of Bexar. 
ran the waters of the aqueduct around the venerable walls 
Unequalled heroism saved none. Travis fell near the western 
ivall ; Crockett in a corner near the church. The slain lay in 
piles about them. Bowie was butchered and mutilated on his 
sick-bed. Evans was shot while attempting to fire the maga- 
zine, a duty, which by agreement among the defenders, had 
fallen to him as the survivor. 

There had been no surrender ; there had been no retreat. 
One brief hour after the Sabbath sun had touched the grim 
walls flying the flag of the lone-star republic, the sacrifice for 
country was complete. With three times their own number q( 



73 



THE ALAMO. 



foemen dead around them, the heroic defenders of the Alamo, 
stiffening as they lay, furnished a spectacle of moral sublimity 
rarely witnessed among men. 

The Mexican victory was complete, and they signalized it by 
stripping the bodies of the Texans, subjecting them to brutal 
mutilations, and then burning them in heaps. The wife of 
Lieutenant Dickinson who fell during the defence, her child, a 
negro-servant of Colonel Travis, and two Mexican women, were 
all that survived the shambles of the Alamo. 




GENERAL SANTA ANNA. 




CHAPULTEPEC. 

1847 

BY JAMES H. WILLARD, 

HE ancient Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, crowned 
a slight elevation in the heart of an irregular 
basin, 7,500 feet above sea level. Upon its 
site — midway between the Pacific Ocean and 
the Gulf of Mexico, and some two hundred 
miles west of Vera Cruz — rises the fair city 
of Mexico. Coyoacan, older than the cap- 
ital itself, and once the seat of Cortez's 
government, nestled near the city. Around, 
are lakes of beauty; tall mountains look down upon the cathe- 
dral, built above the ruins of an Aztec temple. 

Upon this garden spot of the republic, the American army 
was advancing. The fields of Palo Alto and Resaca de la 
Palma had been fought and won. Matamoras had fallen ; the 
capitulation of the city had followed the storming of Monterey ; 
the decisive action at Buena Vista had passed into history. 
Then the Americans invested Vera Cruz by land and by sea. 
The Mexicans struck their flag after a terrible bombardment. 
In the words of an eyewitness : " Bombs were flying into Vera 
Cruz like hail. Sulphureous flashes, clouds of smoke and the dull 
booms of heavy guns arose from the walls of the city in return ; 
while ever and anon a red sheet of flame would leap from the 
great brass mortars of the castle, followed by a report which 
fairly made the earth tremble. ... A huge black cloud of 
smoke hung like a pall over the American army, completely 
concealing it from view ; the Mexicans had ceased firing in order 
to prevent our troops from directing their guns by the flashes 



74 CHAPULTEPEC. 

from the walls : but, having obtained the exact range before 
dark, the gunners continued their fire, every shell falling directly 
into the city. Suddenly a vivid, lightning like flash would 
gleam for an instant upon the dense cloud of smoke over our 
lines, and then, as the roar of the great mortar was borne to our 
ears, the ponderous sheii would be seen to dart upward like a 
meteor, and after describing a semicircle in the air, descend with 
a loud crash upon the housetops, or into the resounding streets. 
Then, after a brief but awful moment of suspense, a lurid 
glare, illuminating for an instant the white domes and grim 
fortresses of Vera Cruz, falling into ruins with the shock, and 
the echoing crash that came to our ears told that a shell had ex- 
ploded, and executed its terrible mission." 

After the fall of the hitherto impregnable defences of Vera 
Cruz, the American army marched along the great national road 
toward the City of Mexico. Entrenched among the rocky defiles 
and precipitous cliffs of the Sierra Madre, General Santa Anna 
contested the advance of the invaders. Cannon roared and 
echoed along the gorges. A murderous storm greeted the 
Americans as they swept over the parapets, leaped among their 
foes, and with the bayonet won the victory of Cerro Gordo. 

Jalapa, La Hoya, Perote aud Puebla fell in quick succession. 
Three large cities, two castles, upward of 700 cannon, immense 
quantities of small arms and ammunition, with 10,000 prisoners 
fell into the hands of the Americans in the space of two 
months. 

Then with consummate science and ability, General Scott led 
his army around Lake Chalco, and fought the battles of Con- 
treras and Churubusco. Then came an armistice, which 
terminated however, on September 6th. Two days later, the 
American guns opened on Molino del Rey. After a severe re- 
sistance, the Mexicans were driven from their stronghold ; the 
citadel of Casa Mata fell to the Americans on the same day. 

The Castle of Chapultepec was now the only obstacle to an 
attack upon the City of Mexico. In his report, General Scott 
described this fortress as " a natural and isolated mound, of 
IP'eat elevation, strongly fortified at its base, on its acclivities aod 



THE "VENICE OF THE AZTECS." 75 

heights. Besides a numerous garrison, here was the mihtary 
college of the republic, with a large number of sub-lieutenants 
and other students. Those works were within direct gunshot of 
the village of Tacubaya, and, until carried, we could not ap- 
proach the city on the west without making a circuit too wide 
and too hazardous." 

Against a background of shadowy hills, rose the crenelated 
walls of the grim fortress that kept ward over what was once 
the '• Venice of the Aztecs." Against its frowning bastions 
the American commander was now to throw his battle-scarred 
veterans ; nothing stood between them and the coveted city — 
picturesque, redolent of its Spanish ancestry, except this last 
link in the chain of obstacles that had hampered their progress 
from the waters of the Gulf to the basin of Mexico. Siege gun 
and mortar hurled an iron storm against the walls, until a pre- 
concerted lull in the firing, gave the signal for the storming 
party to advance. Sweeping the enemy from the woods. 
Pillow's men reached the base of the hill and clambered up 
the ascent. Every Mexican gun that could be brought to bear, 
sent a pitiless hail of grape into their ranks. The sirocco 
breath of the cannon fanned the cheeks of the assailants, as 
they labored over the rocky way. A Pennsylvanian, Cadwalader, 
led the gallant band. Although wounded. Pillow would not 
leave the field, but was carried up the hill to witness the bravery 
of his command. 

In the words of the General-in-Chief, " The broken acclivity 
was still to be ascended, and a strong redoubt midway to be 
carried, before reaching the castle on the heights. The advance 
of our brave officers, though necessarily slow, was unwavering, 
over rocks, chasms, and mines, and under the hottest fire of can- 
non and musketry. The redoubt now yielded to resistless valor, 
and the shouts that followed announced to the castle the fate 
that impended. The enemy were steadily driven from shelter 
to shelter. The retreat allowed not time to fire a single mine 
without the certainty of blowing up friend and foe. Those who 
at a distance attempted to apply matches to the long trains 
were shot down by our men. There was death below as weil as 



76 



CHAPULTEPEC. 



above ground. At length, the ditch and wall of the main work 
were reached ; the scaling-ladders were brought up and planted 
by the storming parties ; some of the daring spirits first in the 
assault were cast down — killed or wounded ; but a lodgment was 
soon made ; streams of heroes followed ; all opposition was 
overcome, and several of our regimental colors were flung out 
from the upper walls, amidst long continued shouts and cheers, 
which sent dismay into the capital. No scene could have been 
more animating or glorious." Colonel Ransom met a soldier's 
death in the headlong assault. Major Seymour mounted the 
ladders with the rank and file, gained the parapet, and tore down 
the Mexican colors with his own hands. 

Quitman assaulted the fortress from the opposite side. As the 
September sun first touched citadel and bastion, his cannon 
roared messages of doom to the foe in their emplacements at 
the base and along the acclivity of the death-dealing hill. 
Swift, sure hurt lurked in the deep ditches that gridironed the 
meadow across which Shields led the heroes of Churubusco, in 
the wild rush that gave them the coveted wall — an outpost ot 
death. Here Van O'Linda fell, Baxter received a mortal 
wound, Geary was disabled ; Shields, himself, though severely 
wounded, refused to leave the field. Smith scattered the Mexi- 
can skirmishers with musketry ; Benjamin shelled the sloping 
woods ; Hunt tore the enemy's lines with shrapnel and shell. 
Then the bugles sounded the assault. In an unbroken line, the 
Americans swept up to the outer line of breastworks, under a 
canopy of shot and shell ; in deadly grapple they threw them- 
selves upon the foe. Bayonet crossed sword ; clubbed rifles rose 
and fell; the bellow of cannon ceased as the indescribable mass 
swayed in the agonies of conflict. Against the desperate valor 
of the Americans, resistance was in vain. Quitman had opened 
another path to Chapultepec itself. A general and ten colonels 
were among the hundred officers captured ; 550 of the rank 
and file were made prisoners. Among the spoils were 1,000 
muskets and seven pieces of artillery. 

Gallant Casey led the regulars on this glorious day until se- 
verely wounded ; then Paul, at their head, won deathless renown. 



THE MEXICAN STIcfir5r<5TH. ']^ 

Miller led the volunteers after the fall of the lamented Twiggs. 
The bravery of the regulars was emulated by the volunteers. 
Those whose consign lay on the south side of the stubbornly 
defended hill, fought their way past every obstacle to Pillow's 
regulars, and with colors mingled, struggled up the death-strewn 
gullies, side by side. General Pillow, in speaking of the brilliant 
operations around Chapultepec, said : " That the enemy was in 
large force, I know, certainly, from personal observation. J 
know it also from the fact that there were killed and taken pris- 
oners, one major-general, and six brigadiers. As there were six 
brigadier-generals, there could not have been less than six brig- 
ades. i,ooo men to each brigade, (which is a low estimate, for 
we had previously taken so many general officers prisoners, that 
the commands of others must have been considerably increased,) 
would make 6,ooo troops. But independent of these evidences 
of the enemy's strength, I have General Bravo's own account 
of the strength of his command, given me only a few minutes 
after he was taken prisoner. He communicated to me, through 
Passed Midshipman Rogers, that there were upward of 6,000 
in tlie works and surrounding grounds. The killed, wounded, 
and prisoners, agreeably to the best estimate I can form, were 
about 1,800, and immense numbers of the enemy were seen to 
escape over the wall on the north and west sides of Chapul- 
tepec." 

The storming of Chapultepec opened a direct road to the City 
of Mexico. Worth pounded the San Cosme gate and found 
himself in the city ; Quitman forced an entrance by the Belen 
gate, after an advance and assault, comparable to Napoleon's 
passage of the Lodi. Terrific fighting ensued, until General 
Santa Anna and his army abandoned the city. Childs, left be- 
hind in Puebla, was besieged for forty days, but offered such 
heroic resistance that the siege was raised. Lane fought and 
won the battle of Huamantla — where the dashing Captain 
Walker fell, then marched to the relief of Childs, winning the 
battle of Atlixco on the way. Then came the capture of Guay- 
mas, and fierce combats with guerillas who infested every plain 
and thicket; then. La Paz, San Jose and the remaining opera- 



7° CHAPULTEPEC. 

tions iR California and New Mexico. The " Treaty of peace, 
friiMidshjp, limits and settlement between the United States of 
America, and the Mexican Republic," was concluded at Guada- 
loupe Hidalgo, February 2d, 1848. 

Seldom is the historian called upon to record such valor as the 
American troops illustrated, from the opening of the campaign 
on the Rio Grande to their occupation of the capital of Mexico, 
and during the subsequent sanguinary engagements that pre- 
ceded the treaty of peace. 




CASTLE OF CHAPULTEPEC. 



BALACLAVA. 




1854. 



ERE this a series of sketches of only the most 
important battles in the world's history, the 
stirring engagements of the 25th of October, 
1854, would have no place in its pages ; but, 
in the annals of modern history, no military 
exploit has ever received such wide attention 
or excited so much interest, enthusiasm and 
remark, as" the Charge of the Light Brigade." 
Wherever the English language is spoken, 
and the sun, we know, never sets on England's possessions, the 
famous lines of her poet laureate are "familiar as household 
words;" and not to English-speaking people alone is the story 
well known. Russia, France and Turkey looked on in amaze 
that day, and, as the tidings of the thrilling battle were flashed 
around the globe, very truly was it said that " all the world 
wondered." 

No one event in soldierly history contains more lessons than 
the combat on the "plains of Balaclava" during the Crimean war. 
Lessons of absurd incapacity of bureau officials at the seat of 
government; of sodden stupidity of Muscovite generals on one 
side, and hot-headed and deplorable rashness on the other ; of 
superb and heroic daring on the part of Britain's horsemen, and 
of absolute inertia on part of their foes. The story has been 
told by thousands of pens and by tens of thousands of tongues, 
yet it can never grow old while our hearts warm at tales of 
bravery and battle. 

But, in speaking of Balaclava, people seem to think onw' or 
the charge c^ the Light Brigade, forgetting or ignoring a charge 

81 



82 BALACLAVA. 

made earlier in the day that was as superb and successful as the 
other was superb and disastrous. It is the purpose of this chap- 
ter to tell of both, and to set before our readers the story of the 
whole day's adventures. 

In her quarrel with Turkey, the great Russian empire had 
made alarming demonstrations towards the Bosphorus, the out- 
let of the Black Sea. If Russia could but once gain possession 
of Constantinople and the command of the Bosphorus and the 
Dardanelles, her empire, as was said by the great Napoleon, 
would indeed be "the empire of the world." The Black Sea, 
with its fine harbors, ship-yards and roadsteads, would become the 
secure rendezvous of her fleets, and issuing from the narrow 
straits to the south, she could sweep the inland ocean of the 
Mediterranean or fall back under her guns, as her enemies proved 
too small or great. The "eastern question" is too complex for 
discussion here. England and France found their interests in 
grave jeopardy, and joined forces with Turkey to resist the Rus- 
sian move. 

In September, 1854, a powerful fleet appeared off the west 
coast of the Crimea (that bleak and sparsely settled peninsula 
that juts out into the Black Sea from the Russian shore), and, 
passing Sebastopol with its solid fortifications, its arsenals and 
dock-yards, moved northward and disembarked an army on the 
strand. For the first time in 500 years, England and France 
were to fight side by side. Marching southward, with the cholera 
as a companion, the allied army met the Russians on the banks 
of the Alma and won a victory by dint of hard fighting and 
sheer personal pluck. The Russians fell back to Sebastopol; 
the French and English followed, and, instead of attacking at 
once and carrying the city with its somewhat demoralized garri- 
son by storm, as could have been done with much smaller loss 
than they had to undergo in the winter that followed, the leaders 
decided to lay siege to the city. The ground to the north did 
not seem favorable for siege approaches, especially as the broad, 
deep harbor lay between them and the town ; so they marched 
clear around it on the east and invested it from the south. This 
left open all the roads to Russia, and in a few days, troops, sup- 



PERSONNEL OF THE ENGLISH ARMY. 83 

plies and provisions began to arrive in ample quantity from the 
north for the use of the garrison; and for a long time nothing 
came to help the British and French. The former had seized 
the little land-locked harbor of Balaclava to make it their supply 
d^pot, and thither the transports and war-ships were directed to 
sail ; but all their infantry and artillery were needed in the 
trenches around Sebastopol ; and, to guard Balaclava from as- 
sault by the Russians, who had strong forces out, all over the Cri- 
mea, ready to swoop down on any undefended point, the English 
could only rely upon Sir Colin Campbell, with the Ninety-third 
Highlanders; and the cavalry division, which, not being available 
for siege duty, had gone into camp out in the open ground north- 
east of Balaclava. It numbered, all told, about 1,500 men. 

Lord Raglan was " commander of the forces " in the British 
army of occupation. He had given the best years of his life to 
the profession of arms ; had been a trusted staff-officer of the 
great Duke of Wellington ; had served in the Peninsula, at 
Waterloo and in India. He and his infantry generals were men 
who were practised soldiers ; but in the English army, in those 
days of promotion by purchase and family influence, the cavalry 
was regarded as the " crack " arm of the service — the most aris- 
tocratic, desirable and chivalric. The British troopers were 
selected with the utmost care, and most thoroughly taught the 
use of the sword, and made to ride like centaurs. Men and horses 
were superb. Then, to keep alive their pride, their uniforms 
and equipments were of the most showy material and costly 
make. Each regiment had its distinctive number, name and 
traditions. Each had its " honors," and in the whole world 
there probably was not a more gallant and high-spirited body 
of young officers and men than went with England's cavalry 
division to the Crimea in 1854. It was composed of two brig- 
ades, one of light, the other of heavy cavalry. Next to the 
household brigade — the Queen's personal guards — the most aris- 
tocratic corps in the army were the hussars and lancers — the 
light cavalry ; but there was no lack of gentle blood, and there 
was vast preponderance of solid British brawn and muscle in 
the dragoons, or "heavies," as they were called. England only 



84 



BALACLAVA. 



sent 1,500 cavalry with its army of occupation to the Crimea, 
and before Balaclava, sickness had robbed the two brigades of 
many men and horses ; but in each brigade were five small regi- 
ments, and their names will go down to posterity as heroes of 
the most thrilling cavalry exploit of the nineteenth century. The 
Light Brigade was made up of the reduced "service squadrons" 
of the Eighth and Eleventh hussars (known among their com- 
rades as the Royal Irish and the "Cherry Pants," respectively); 
the Fourth and Thirteenth light dragoons, and the superb " death 
or glory " squadrons of the Seventeenth lancers. In all the 
British army, no regiments were more envied than the Eleventh 
hussars (the "Prince of Wales' Own"), and the Seventeenth lan- 
cers, that had fought in every war and every important battle 
where British colors waved, from the day of their organization. 
The officers of the Light Brigade were, as a rule, young gentle- 
men or noblemen of iiigh birth and connection. Some few were 
experienced cavalrymen — all were brave. 

The Heavy Brigade was composed of five regiments of dra- 
goons, three of which were famous organizations, and had given 
to their organization the name of the "Union brigade." 
These were the three regiments of dragoon-guards known as the 
Royals, the Scots Greys and the Inniskillings, composed respect- 
ively of men recruited from England, Scotland and Ireland. The 
other two commands were the Fourth and Fifth dragoon-guards — 
fine soldiers, but not so renowned, perhaps, as their brigade com- 
rades who had fought together even at Waterloo, and between 
whom an almost romantic spirit of friendship and alliance existed. 
The dragoons were uniformed in scarlet, with heavy brass hel- 
mets and shoulder-scales, except the Scots Greys, who still clung 
to the massive bearskin head-gear they had been allowed to wear 
for a century, and were loth to part with, despite its cumbrous- 
ness as a horseman's hat. The Light Brigade wore the jaunty 
tunic and white facings in the lancer regiment, and the fanciful 
"busby" and fur-trimmed pelisse of blue in the hussars. Horses 
and men in the " Heavies " were of stouter build than in the 
light, but the latter affected a somewhat airy manner of superi- 
ority over their comrades. 




n 



',/'!> 



"too FINE FELLOWS FOR THEIR WORK." gj 

Now the Russian cavalry in the Crimea was numerically 
almost twenty times as strong as the British, and, whether lan- 
cers, hussars, dragoons, or the ubiquitous Cossacks, they were 
habited in immense gray overcoats and heavy caps of felt and 
fur that made admirable defensive armor against sword-cut or 
thrust. They were mounted on powerful, "stocky" horses; 
had been rigorously drilled and disciplined ; but the rank and 
file were of the same patient, docile, steadfast nature that made 
their infantry so reliable. Except the Cossacks, they utterly 
lacked the fire and enthusiasm, the sense of individuality which 
is so important to a good cavalry soldier. Imposing in mass 
and on parade, they had none of the dash that characterized the 
French and English troopers ; and, both at the Alma and during 
the movements around Sebastopol, they had been clumsily han- 
dled, and were held in little respect by their foes. 

But not only of the Russian cavalry was the British linesmen 
speaking disdainfully after the battle of the Alma ; all around 
among the camp-fires on the high plateau of the Chersonese, 
where the British infantry had pitched their tents, could be heard 
slurs and inuendos at the expense of the light cavalry brigade. 
"Too fine fellows for their work." "Too accustomed to being 
petted, spoiled and coddled at home to be worth anything in the 
field." They, too, had been faultily led and handled after the 
Alma, and now, camping in the south valley over under the pro 
tecting shoulder of the Chersonese, their leader living and sleep- 
ing in pampered luxury on board his yacht in Balaclava harbor, 
they became the target for much unfriendly criticism among 
their own people; and the Light Brigade stood sorely in need of 
a brilliant battle in which to show the stuff they knew they had 
within them. 

They and their comrade " Heavies" were camped, as we have 
said, under the slopes of the Chersonese, down in the south val- 
ley. Now let us take a look at their leaders. 

It has been said that the cavalry officer is, like the poet, "born, 

not made;" but no man has ever yet proved himself a great 

cavalry leader without having first mastered the rudiments of 

mounted service, and spent some years in connection with it in 

5 



S8 BALACLAVA, 

the field. For years previous to the Crimean war, England had 
the finest practical cavalry-school in the world — India; and there 
were in her armies scores — perhaps hundreds — of thoroughly 
skilled and experienced officers of all grades, who had scouted, 
skirmished and fought with the war-like Sikhs through jungle, 
plain or mountain pass. The service had been severe, exacting, 
and full of danger and incessant alarm ; it had called for a high 
degree of personal courage and judgment, and in the constant 
exercise of every soldierly faculty, had made the English officers 
who had gone through the ordeal, most accomplished leaders of 
horse. Now that it became necessary to send a fine cavalry di- 
vision into active service against a powerful foe, renowned for 
his strength in that particular arm, the natural supposition would 
be that England would select for its leaders men, who had proved 
their worth as cavalry soldiers. It would be the obvious course 
of any sensible government. 

But England did nothing of the kind. For commanders of 
her division and brigades, " Her Majesty's government " se- 
lected three gentlemen of high degree, who not only had never 
so much as seen service in the cavalry, but had absolutely seen 
no active service at all. Not one had ever taken part in cam- 
paign or battle. There were dozens of men amply qualified for 
the command and eager to take it, but they were not peers. 
England placed the flower of her army in the hands of three 
tyros — but two of these tve^'e peers. 

To the Earl of Lucan, who had modestly expressed a wish to 
be made use of in some capacity, England confided the whole 
division of cavalry. He had asked for an infantry brigade as 
best suited to his inexperience. To the Earl of Cardigan was 
intrusted the Light Brigade, and to the Right Honorable Yorke 
Scarlett were given the " Heavies." All three gentlemen were over 
fifty years of age. Lord Lucan was a lieutenant-general. Car- 
digan and Scarlett were brigadiers. Lucan and Cardigan were 
brothers-in-law and hated one another cordially. Each had un- 
bounded faith in his own knowledge and skill, and very little 
faith or respect for that of anybody else. Lucan was a man who 
speedily made himself known as a determined and unsparing 



THE ENGLISH CAVALRY LEADERS CONTRASTED. 8<- 

critic of the orders and actions of his superiors, a persistent 
growler and fault-finder, and he became almost immediately 
vastly unpopular in the army. Cardigan was a man full of love 
for the profession of arms. He had entered the most extravagant 
and gorgeous of the hussar regiments (the " Prince of Wales' 
Own ") when a young man, and the extraordinary system of pur- 
chase and nepotism combined, had enabled him in seven years to 
rise from the foot of its list of officers to the command of the 
" Cherry Pants." For a long time he had been its colonel " for 
his amusement," and, after being gazetted general of brigade, he 
still continued when on military duty to wear the superb uniform 
of his old regiment. It was the handsomest in the army and 
preferable on that account. But Cardigan was selfish to the 
core, arrogant and haughty with his juniors in rank, and holding 
himself aloof from all comradeship with his fellow-campaigners 
when they went to the bleak Crimea. At a time when the whole 
cavalry division was " roughing it " in camp under the shoulder 
of the Chersonese, when all was sickness, discomfort and priva- 
tion, when Lucan and Scarlett were sharing the hardships with 
their men, my Lord Cardigan was living and sleeping in luxury 
aboard his yacht in Balaclava harbor, only trotting over to camp 
occasionally to attend to routine duty and say rasping things ^o 
his officers. No " commoner " could have dared pursue such a 
course ; but when a peer of England chose to do his campaign- 
ing in that manner there was no one to say him nay. Lord 
Raglan, " commander of the forces," had not personal force 
enough to forbid it. 

General Scarlett was a man of totally different mould. Proud 
of his new command, he set himself diligently to work to 
qualify himself for the position, and speedily won the confidence 
and respect of officers and troopers alike. While Lucan and 
Cardigan chose as their aides-de-camp young officers of the 
nobility and aristocracy, without reference to their military 
ability, Scarlett picked out men distinguished for brilliancy 
and experience in war, without reference to their family influence 
or connections. This gave him the services of two admirable 
cavaliy soldiers, Alexander Eliot and Colonel Beatson. 



90 



BALACLAVA. 



Now to take a look at the ground. Sebastopol lay on the 
south side of a deep arm of the sea that stretched in, eastward, 
between steep and rugged shores. Massive fortifications of 
masonry were planted on every point, and every commanding 
piece of ground. Into the long narrow harbor there flowed 
from the southeast the river Tchernaya through a deep valley. 
South of the harbor the shore line jutted out into a bold promon- 
tory, then swept round eastward in precipitous cliffs for some 
iniles, until a fissure-like opening in their face gave entrance to 
the little roadstead of Balaclava, a town and harbor which lay 
southeast of Sebastopol. A rough country road led up the 
heights back of Balaclava through the gorge of Kadikoi, and 
so over the bleak highlands of the Chersonese into Sebastopol 
itself This " Chersonese " was a broad and too breezy upland, 
sloping gradually upwards and backwards away from the city 
and harbor, until within a mile and a half of Balaclava it dipped 
abruptly down into what has been called the plain, an open, 
undulating tract of country lying north of the little town, and 
extending from the Chersonese on the west to the ridge between 
it, and the valley of the Tchernaya on the east. Dividing it 
into two nearly equal oblong portions was a longitudinal ridge 
with occasional knolls or hummocks, and along this ridge ran 
the broad highway from Sebastopol to the southeast known as 
the Woronzoff road. The ridge was given the name of the 
Causeway Heights, and the oblong portions of the plain of 
Balaclava were called the North valley and South valley re- 
spectively, as they lay north or south of the highway. The 
north valley was thus surrounded on four sides by rising 
ground ; west by the Chersonese bluffs, which overlooked the 
entire plain from a height of some four hundred feet ; north by 
the Fedioukine Heights ; east by Mount Hasfort of the Tcher- 
naya " divide," as it would be called on the plains of our great 
west, and south by the Causeway Heights. The entire north 
valley was open and admirably adapted for the movements of 
cavalry. 

The English and French armies were encamped around the 
south side of Sebastopol, the French nearest the sea ; only the 



RUSSIAN CAVALRY ATTACK. nj 

British cavalry and the Ninety-third Highlanders being near 
Balaclava. Under the guidance of English officers some 3,000 
Turks had been employed building earthen redoubts along the 
Causeway Heights, and planting guns therein to protect Balaclava 
from Russian attack from the valley of the Tchernaya. These 
attacks were frequently threatened, but nothing seemed to come 
of them. It was the loth of October when the British "broke 
ground " for the siege around Sebastopol, and these threatened 
attacks on Balaclava were so frequent that when word was 
brought to Lord Raglan on the 24th that very heavy columns 
of the Russians were crossing the Tchernaya with the evident 
intention of an assault on the new works at Balaclava, he merely 
replied, " Very well," and went on with his conversation with 
the French general, and paid no further attention to the matter. 
Before dawn on October 25th the Russians were there, and in 
very strong force — General Liprandi with some 18,000 men hav- 
ing swooped down upon the Turks on the Causeway Heights, and 
General Jabrokritsky with perhaps 7,000 having seized a strong 
position on the Fedioukine Heights. The Turks, after a vigorous 
defence of the easternmost redoubt, were driven towards 
Balaclava in great confusion ; but the western half of the Cause- 
way Heights was saved by the firm stand made by Sir Colin 
Campbell and his regiment of Highlanders, and the active move- 
ments of the cavalry division which hovered about as though 
ready to attack and yet kept out of dangerous range. The Rus- 
sians had with them some seventy-eight field-guns of their own, 
and had captured a number more of English make from the 
Turkish redoubts on the Causeway Heights. 

The sound of battle had already reached Lord Raglan and 
General Canrobert in their camps on the Chersonese, and they 
had rapidly mounted and galloped to the edge of the plateau 
from whence they could overlook the entire scene. Raglan 
ordered forward two divisions of infantry, and Canrobert the fine 
cavalry of D'Allonville, but it took time to send to their camps, 
and longer to get them to the scene ; meantime there was peril 
at Balaclava. Captain Maude, whose battery of horse-artillery 
had accompanied the cavalry division, was severely wounded. 



92 BALACLAVA. 

and by orders of Lord Raglan, the cavalry were drawn back to 
the west end of the valleys, and just south of the Woronzoffroad. 

It was about half-past seven a. m. when the Russians succeeded 
in seizing the easternmost redoubts, and their next move was 
to assault the position occupied by the Ninety-third Highlanders, 
which covered Balaclava on the north. By this time the edge 
of the Chersonese overlooking the plain was thronged with 
spectators from the French and English camps, and one or two 
light-batteries had been " hitched in " and trotted thither, and 
were now unlimbered and ready to hurl plunging shots down 
into the valley should the Russians come that way, and come 
they did. 

It must be remembered that from the commanding height of 
the Chersonese (there called the Sapoune Heights), everything 
on the plain below looked to be about the same general level. 
This was not the case at all. The north valley sloped very 
gently down towards the east until it reached the base of Mount 
Hasfort, but the western end of the valley was cut up by vine- 
yards, farm enclosures, little hillocks and ridges; then there 
stood the upheaval of the Causeway Heights with its highway, 
and south of that, over on the slopes of the south valley, were 
the now abandoned camps of the cavalry division. From the 
point where the two brigades were now drawn up in line, they 
could not see anything approaching them along the north valley, 
though they could see the Russian guns and masses on the 
heights all around it. It so happened then, that towards nine 
o'clock, when General Ryjoff with thirty-two field-guns and an 
immense solid column of gray-clad horsemen came marching 
westward along the valley, not a single officer or man of the 
English cavalry division saw or heard of the move. They 
did not even have skirmishers or videttes on the ridges 
in front of them — an incomprehensible omission to American 
eyes. To Lord Raglan and the spectators on the heights, the 
whole scene was like a panorama. Orders had just been sea* 
to detach eight squadrons to the assistance of the Turks at tht 
gorge of Kadikoi. Lord Lucan had despatched Scarlett witk 
some of his " Heavies " on that mission, and at the same time 




ALEXANDER II., CZAR OF RUSSIA, 187T. 



POMPOSITY AND STUPIDITY OF CARDIGAN. 95 

moved the Light Brigade forward some two or three hundred 
yards into a position where they faced east directly down the 
north valley, and had himself ridden back towards the Cherso- 
nese, when there came from those heights the sound of two or 
three rapid gun-shots, the whistling of shells through the air 
over the Light Brigade, and the bang and " whirr-r-r" of their 
explosion farther to the front. Utterly surprised, Lord Lucan 
galloped to a neighboring hillock, and there caught sight of the 
heavy column of the Russians sweeping up the valley towards 
the Light Brigade. They were north of the Woronzoff road, yet 
not more than quarter of a mile from the slender lines of his 
lancers and hussars. Now, checked by the guns on the Sapoune 
Ridge, the whole mass at sound of the trumpet swung south- 
ward towards the Causeway Heights, moved slowly ?//> that slope 
with the evident intention of crossing the Woronzoff road, and 
getting over into the south valley. In so doing, they passed 
squarely in front of the Light Brigade, presenting their right 
flank to attack, and, to the amaze and disgust of the lookers-on, 
the Light Brigade never budged. It was a splendid chance for 
Cardigan and his swordsmen to rush in on that flank, hack it 
up and get back with little or no loss, but Cardigan had been 
told to defend or " hold " that position, and, utterly ignoring the 
fact that cavalry can never defend by sitting still in the saddle 
— can only defend by attacking, in fact — the titled blockhead sat 
stiffly in front of his command, and let the opportunity slip. He 
had a glorious cavalry soldier close by his side. Captain Morris, 
commanding the Seventeenth lancers ; and Morris, seeing the 
golden moment going by, ventured to break through the iron- 
clad reserve and distance maintained in English ofiicial circles, 
and beg of Lord Cardigan permission to charge with his regi- 
ment at least. He was rudely and haughtily snubbed for his 
pains. 

But even as the spectators on the crest were anathematizing 
Lord Cardigan for his inaction, they were greeted by a change 
in the shifting scene below that excited their utmost delight and 
enthusiasm, not unmixed with anxiety. 

Scarlett with his eight squadrons had marched off* towards 



^ BALACLAVA. 

Kadikoi", was passing behind a thick vineyard or plantation 
partly concealing him from the Causeway Heights, and then 
moving out on the open ground, was riding on the left flank of 
his little brigade with the Inniskilling's Second squadron and 
the Scots Greys nearest him, when, glancing to the left, the 
quick eye of his aide-de-camp. Lieutenant Eliot, was attracted 
by a bristling of lance-points peeping up over the Causeway 
Heights to the north. Then came the pennons or " banderoles," 
as the swallow-tailed lance flags are called, and in solid squad- 
rons riding " closed in mass" 3,000 Russian horsemen suddenly 
appeared. It was a sight to shake the nerve of any soldier. 
Not six hundred yards away, these ponderous masses came 
trotting over the ridge apparently bent on rushing down the 
slope and overwhelming the slender ranks of the British, but 
when light guns began to pop up the crest beside them, and 
more squadrons show in their rear, things looked desperate. 
A justifiable impulse on the part of any cavalryman with so 
small a force as Scarlett's would have been to wheel to the right 
and trot rapidly off out of the way, but Scarlett was a bull-dog. 
He wheeled to the left, and flew straight at the throat of his foe. 
It was simply magnificent. " Left wheel into line " was the 
ringing order from his lips. The trumpets echoed the signal ; 
the slender red ranks swung round to the left, halted, "dressed" 
as though on drill, and then, as though stunned by the very 
audacity of his island enemy, the Russian commander ordered 
halt ! Anything more idiotic he could not have done. Had he 
kept on — riding down the slope at rapid trot — the mere weight 
and inertia of his sixteen-deep squadrons would have rolled 
over the two-rank formation of the British and swept them |rom 
the field. Scarlett and Eliot saw the woful blunder at the in- 
stant. " Forward " was the order, then came " gallop " and, as 
they neared the amazed thousands in dusky gray, " charge ! " 
and, way ahead of their leading line, Scarlett and Eliot, side by 
side, close followed by their trumpeter and "orderly " (the latter 
a powerful and veteran swordsman, whose very name, Shegog, 
gave the idea of a giant), crashed headlong into the solid mass 
of Russians. A splendid-looking officer sat in his saddle in 



CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE. 



97 



front of the centre of the h'ne. General Scarlett wore the red 
coat and brass helmet of his brigade ; Eliot the chapeau and 
blue frock of the staff officer, and the Russian colonel, sup- 
posing the latter to be the ranking officer — a general, perhaps — 
let Scarlett rush past him unopposed, but made a furious cut at 
Eliot as the latter dashed by on his right ; but Eliot's ready- 
blade parried the blow and in the same instant drove to the very 
hilt through the colonel's body, whirled him round in his saddle, 
and hurled him to earth a corpse, while the Englishman's charger 
bore the aide-de-camp and his now reeking sabre into the midst 
of the enemy. Behind them, with low, savage roar, came the 
rank of Scots' Greys. Off to their right, with a wild Irish 
" hurroo," the Inniskillings crashed in on the Russian mass, and 
then began the most extraordinary cavalry combat on record, 
Three hundred British troopers were endeavoring to hew their 
way up hill through three thousand Russians. Their horses 
had wedged their way in among the leading ranks, and, hewing, 
hacking, thrusting, hurling men out of the saddle with their 
brawny arms, the stalwart Scotch and half-savage Paddies were 
playing havoc with the helpless Muscovites. They and their 
officers seemed paralyzed by the audacity of the Islanders. Al- 
ready had Scarlett cut his way into the very centre of the mass, 
and the leading ranks of Greys and Inniskillings were abso- 
lutely swallowed up in the Russian square (for such it practically 
was), but, though in imminent peril themselves, such was the 
activity of their good swords, and so great was the consternation 
of the enemy, that in many instances Russian horsemen threw 
themselves out of their saddles and took refuge among the 
chargers' heels rather than face the British blades. 

And yet there was very little slaughter going on after the on- 
set. The thick head-gear of the Russians and the very heavy 
material of their overcoats proved most effective defensive armor 
against the whirling sword-blades, while British helmet and 
bear-skin shako answered a like purpose. The horses, wedged 
in Uke cattle in a pen, ducked their heads for shelter from the 
rain of blows, and though fierce and savage cuts and thrusts 
\v£re given in every direction, and blood flowed freely from 



9S 



BALACLAVA. 



gaping wounds on head and face, comparatively few mortal hurts 
had been inflicted. Hardly a man of the Heavies escaped with- 
out some memento of the combat. 

But now the Royals and the Fourth and Fifth Dragoon 
Guards, who had been farther to the rear when Scarlett made 
his daring rush, came tearing in at headlong charge — the Royals 
trotting up to a point opposite the Russian right, between them 
and the envious horsemen of the Light Brigade, then wheeled 
into line to their right, took the gallop and charge, and burst 
upon the flank at right-angles to the line of Greys and Innis- 
killings. Lord Lucan himself had arrived on the scene and 
directed the assault to the aid of Scarlett ; and now, riven from 
front to centre by the piercing sabres of their first assailants, 
and furiously charged on both flanks by fresh and confident 
horsemen, the whole Russian mass seemed to heave helplessly 
backward up the slope; then to disintegrate and crumble away; 
then to surge back in a dingy gray torrent on the supporting 
Cossacks, sweeping them away with their flood ; then the guns 
whirled about and with galloping steeds went thundering away 
down the north valley, and in less time than it takes to write 
it, the whole column of General Ryjoff" was in disorderly rout 
towards the east. Now, now was the time for Cardigan. There 
he sat with nearly seven hundred eager troopers almost implor- 
ing to be let go ; officers and men fairly ready to cry with rage 
and mortification at being held back. Now was his time to 
launch in the Light Brigade, and Ryjofl"'s horsemen would 
never have rallied this side of the Tchernaya, and under the very 
noses of Liprandi and Jabrokritsky, the British cavalry could 
have taken every one of the Russian horse-batteries, and won a 
victory over four times their weight in foes that would have 
thrilled the world with admiration ; but the hero of the Home 
office, the chosen of her majesty's ministry, had about as much 
idea of the use of cavalry as he had of morality. " Damn those 
Heavies. They've got the laugh of us this day," was his com- 
ment on the situation, and to the absolute amaze of the throng 
of spectators on the heights, to the sly ridicule of the French, to 
the groaning disappointment of the English, the "swells " of the 



BRILLIANT INDIVIDUAL EXPLOITS. 



99 



Light Brigade were held in the leash, and the Russians got 
away in safety. Scarlett's men, exhausted, were rallied and re- 
formed. Ryjoff's guns and horse scampered to the other end 
of the valley, a mile and a half away, then reined about and once 
more faced westward. The chance was gone. 

So far the honors of the day were with the " Heavies." 
Most gallantly had they borne themselves — most astonish- 
ing was their success, yet their loss was only seventy-eight 
killed and seriously wounded, but the " scratches " and cuts 
were innumerable ; and now as, panting for breath, they slowly 
returned from the brief pursuit, cheer upon cheer went up 
from the swarms of spectators. " Well done ! " came from the 
lips of Lord Raglan ; and brave old Sir Colin Campbell rode 
over in front of his countrymen, uncovered his white head and 
called them by their old pet name : " Greys ! gallant Greys ! I 
should be proud to be in your ranks." 

Well they deserved the lavish praises ! Double their number 
in Russian horsemen were left upon the ground dead or harm- 
less. It was the grandest cavalry exploit of the century — even 
Murat had done nothing to excel it. 

Now to speak of some individual experiences that should never 
be forgotten in connection with this fight. 

The first to pierce the Russian mass was Scarlett himself, a 
man who had no pretensions to being much of a swordsman, 
but such was his courage and vim that he not only bore himself 
superbly through the host of hostile swords and lances, but ab- 
solutely cut his way entirely through the square and emerged, 
battered and bleeding, but still erect in the saddle, on the left 
flank of the Russian cavalry in plain sight of Lord Lucan, who 
was then directing the assault of the Fifth Dragoon Guards. 
The brigadier had received five sharp and painful wounds from 
lance or sabre, and his helmet was battered into a shapeless 
mass, but he hardly seemed to know he was hurt. Colonel 
Griffith of the Scots Greys had been shot in the head by a 
carbine ball early in the charge. Major Clarke of the Greys 
lost his bearskin shako, but leaped into the fight bare-headed, 
and was in desperate danger until rescued by his men. The 

L.ofC. 



TOO . BALACLAVA. 

instances of personal bravery and daring are innumerable, but 
of one man, especially, the " Heavies " could never say enough: 
that man was Alexander Eliot. 

He it will be remembered had killed the first of the enemy, 
the Russian officer who led the centre, and then, jerking out his 
sword, but never slackening the pace, had leaped in among the 
gray coats. His distinctive dress, that of the staff-officer, made 
him the conspicuous object of the enemy's attention. Believing 
him to be the general they swarmed upon him from every side, 
but his sword-play was wonderful, and man after man went 
down before him. It was a revival of the old-time fighting — the 
days of mace and battle-axe, and mailed knight errantry ; only 
Eliot had neither shield, casque nor coat of mail ; his heavy 
sword, unusually long, strong and sharp, served both for offence 
and defence, and he found an unexpected ally in his charger. 
The horse was so furious at being swarmed upon and crowded 
by the Russian steeds that he took to biting, kicking and lash- 
ing out with his heels in every direction, vastly aiding his mas- 
ter in warding off attacks from the rear. But Eliot had cut his 
way in so far as to be alone in the midst of enemies, and a 
dozen seemed bent on despatching him. A sabre-gash in the 
forehead blinded him for a moment, the blood flowing into his 
eyes, and with savage yells the Russians closed in around him, and 
all in an instant one sword cut a deep slashing wound right down 
the middle of his face, another crashed through his chapeau, 
and another still, a weighty one, laid bare the skull behind the 
ear. Bleeding from every pore, the daring fellow, nevertheless, 
fought on, giving full measure for all he got ; and when at last 
the Russians were put to rout, and he was picked up uncon- 
scious but alive, fourteen gaping sabre and lance wounds were 
counted upon him as his share of the honorable trophies of 
combat. No wonder Greys and Royals and Inniskillings 
cheered the gallant aide-de-camp. No wonder General Scarlett 
in his report of the battle to Lord Lucan mentioned Lieutenant 
Eliot, as especially " entitled to the notice of the commander 
of the forces," and eventually named him for the Victoria Cross. 
No wonder all right-thinking men and honest soldiers swore at 



iNStJFFERAteLE ARROGANCE OF LUCAN. lO^ 

the cool, insufferable arrogance with which Lord Lucan treated 
Scarlett's recommendations. Eliot's name was not even " men- 
tioned in the despatches," and Lord Lucan's report of the cavalry 
engagements of the 25th of October merely allude to him as 
" slightly wounded." 

Just how to reconcile Lord Lucan's conduct towards this 
heroic soldier with his pretensions of being himself an officer 
and a gentleman, is for American soldiers too complex a 
problem. Scarlett's report of the action was made two days 
after it occurred, and never till the following December did he 
learn that Eliot had been entirely ignored by the division com- 
mander. That he should be refused the Victoria Cross on plea 
that in being the most conspicuous man in the fight " he had 
done no more than his duty " was perhaps to be expected ; but 
it may be safely asserted that no such excuse would have 
been resorted to had Eliot been the son of a peer of the realm. 

Called upon to explain his omission of Eliot's name in the 
despatches, Lord Lucan replied : " I did not consider it fitting 
especially to name him. ... I think that the obvious conse- 
quences of such general and indiscriminate recommendations 
would be that but little value would be attached to general 
officers' requests." 

No; Lord Lucan declined to mention Mr. Eliot, who was the 
hero of the charge of the Heavy Brigade. Instead of him he 
named as most distinguished, his own aide-de-camp, who took no 
part whatsoever in either of the great charges, and the nature of 
whose gallant services on that day is, to this, an impenetrable 
mystery. 

However, this was by no means Lord Lucan's worst blunder 
at Balaclava. It is small wonder that even the imbecility of the 
British war-office could put up with his incapacities no longer, 
and that it speedily became necessary to relieve him of the com- 
mand of what he had not sacrificed of his division, and send him 
home. The most patient and painstaking and loyal of English 
historians, Mr. Kinglake, can find little or nothing to say in ex- 
tenuation of his lordship's colossal shortcomings as a com- 
mander ; and it is to his elaborate account of Balaclava that wc 
6 



I04 Balaclava. 

are mainly indebted for the details of the affair. Lord Lucati 
was destined to sacrifice the flower of the British army — the 
gallant and spirited Light Brigade. 

The wonderful exploit of the " Heavies " had been witnessed by 
thousands of stunned foemen as well as by hundreds of delighted 
friends. By this time the Sapoune Heights began to blaze with 
the scarlet tunics of the guardsmen under the Duke of Cam- 
bridge, and those of the Light Division. Lord Raglan's rein- 
forcements were coming up. 

On the other hand Ryjoff's disordered cavalry, accompanied 
by the light guns, had scurried back down the long north valle}-, 
and then, finding itself unpursued (for Scarlett's men were 
breathless and Cardigan's held in restraint), had at last rallied 
under the slopes of Mount Hasfort, and then the Cossack bat- 
teries unlimbered their ugly black guns, and now a dozen of 
them were pointing squarely up the valley in case the British 
horsemen should advance. Off on the Fedioukine Heights, 
north of the valley, the slopes for nearly a mile and a half were 
lined with field-guns and riflemen from the Russian ranks, and 
over on the Causeway Heights to the south, the Odessa regi- 
ment was slowly retiring from its advanced position, and falling 
back eastward upon the heavy supports farther along the ridge. 
But they were not going empty-handed. Far up on the 
Chersonese, keen-sighted soldiers had marked the scurry of 
artillery teams. Already, seeing the Russian infantry falling 
back, Lord Raglan had sent to Lord Lucan an order in writ- 
ing : " Cavalry to advance and take advantage of any opportunity 
to recover the heights," and Lucan, who now had his whole 
division in line facing down the North valley just north of the 
Woronzoff road, was giving the Heavies a brief breathing spell, 
and casting about in his mind for the actual meaning of this 
order, spent very nearly an hour in doing absolutely nothing, 
when, sudden, sharp and peremptory, there came an order which 
admitted of no temporizing. By this time Lord Raglan, his 
staff, and all spectators were chafing with excitement, even of 
indignation at Lucan's torpor, for, over to the right front, in 
plam view of the Sapoune Heights, the Russians were hitching 



LORD RAGLAN'S FAMOUS ORDER. I05 

spare teams to the guns in the abandoned redoubts along the 
Causeway, and were lugging them off to the rear. These were 
English guns, and the idea of letting them go in this way was 
shameful. Some of the younger officers were vehemently growling 
their " impatience and indignation," and Lord Raglan, fired by 
the sight, directed his chief of staff, General Airey, to write an 
immediate order to Lord Lucan to advance and put a stop to the 
Russian captures. Airey wrote the order in pencil and it read 
thus : 

" Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, and try to 
prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troop of horse artillery may accom' 
pany. French cavalry is on your left. Immediate. 

(Signed) " R. Airey." 

The words of the order left not the faintest doubt what " guns " 
were meant, for the only guns the Russians were " carrying off" 
were those on the Causeway Heights to the right front of the 
cavalry division, and when Lucan combined that order with the 
one directing him to reoccupy the heights, there was absolutely 
nothing to admit of his supposing that any other guns were 
meant. But Lucan, we have said, was a persistent critic of alf 
orders from superior authority. He never obeyed an ordei 
without first endeavoring to pick it to pieces, and this particulai 
order came to him in a manner that made him more than usually 
crabbed and ill-disposed. The circumstances were as follows : 

Lord Raglan had already begun to fathom the character of his 
crotchety chief of cavalry; but, respecting the undoubted cour- 
age and energy of the man, he had sought to humor him af 
much as possible, and to avoid giving him opportunity for tak' 
ing offence. To this end, knowing Lord Lucan's petulant 
objection to instructions or orders coming through the chief of 
staff of the army. General Airey, " the commander of the forces*' 
had frequently sent them in his own hand, an amiable piece of 
weakness that should have had no place in active campaigning. 
Lucan disliked General Airey, and strove to ignore him on all 
occasions when it could be done, and now he was about to receive 
an order written and signed by General Airey, and more than that, 
borne by General Airey's aide-de-camp. It was absolutely none 



lo6 BALACLAVA. 

of his business who was the bearer. So long as it was signed 
by the chief of staff or an aide-de-camp of Lord Raglan, and given 
in Lord Raglan's name, it was his duty to receive it with all 
soldierly respect and obey it accordingly. He did neither. The 
instant he had read it he dared to break out into an insubordi- 
nate denunciation of the order, and virtually to challenge the 
aide-de-camp who bore it, to a defence of its merits. He believed 
it to be Airey's order, for here it came by Airey's aide-de-camp, 
Captain Louis Nolan, and of all men in the English army Nolan 
was perhaps the last one from whose hands Lord Lucan would 
have kindly received an order of any kind. 

There was a singular fatality in the selection of this young 
cavalry captain as bearer of the message. Colonel Calthorpe, 
Lord Raglan's own aide, was seated in the saddle at his side as 
Airey finished writing, and yet his lordship called up Airey's 
aide-de-camp, intrusted the paper to him, and bade him deliver 
it with all speed. They were up on the crest of the Sapoune 
Heights it will be remembered, and the whole animated scene lay 
before their eyes. Lord Lucan was sitting out in front of his 
division, half a mile, probably, from the base of the heights, and 
several hundred feet below them. The road wound its way down 
along the slopes, a devious course. Perhaps it was because Lord 
Raglan wished to avail himself of Nolan's superb horsemanship 
that he selected him. Certain it is that the instant the order 
was in his hand the captain put spurs to his horse, and, disdain- 
ing the gradual descent of the highway, darted straight down the 
steep hillside, swift and straight as any Sioux Indian would ride, 
and all men watched him admiringly as he sped on the last 
errand of his soldierly life. 

Louis Nolan was a vehement and enthusiastic lover of his 
profession. He believed that there was nothing a cavalryman 
could not do in the way of clearing a battle-field of all enemies. 
He had for two months past been chafing and swearing over the 
inaction of his comrades. He had heard the covert sneers at 
the expense of his idols, the Light Brigade, and was stung to the 
quick at the contemplation of their neglected opportunities after 
the battle of the Alma. He blamed it all on Lord Lucan. He 



ENTHUSIASM OF CAPTAIN NOLAN. IO7 

openly spoke of him as the clog to all action on the part of the 
cavalry division, and criticised the division commander as freely 
as the latter criticised his own superiors. With all its pomp, 
formality and etiquette, there must have been an odd state of 
discipline in the British army in 1854. Very probably some of 
this talk had reached Lucan's ears, and added to his dislike of 
the brilliant young cavalryman, who, a commoner, had dared 
criticise his methods. At all events he was in no mood to be 
told to do anything through such a channel. 

It so happened that Nolan, sweeping around the flank of the 
horse at rapid gallop in search of their chief, had to make a large 
circle with his own steed before he reined up in front of Lord 
Lucan. His back was now down the valley, he was facing the 
general, the centre of the division, and the broad background 
of the Sapoune Heights, which he had just quitted. Breathlessly 
the officers and men of the two brigades watched the gallant 
young aide they knew so well, as, saluting with calm respect, he 
handed the fateful despatch to Lord Lucan. Well they knew it 
meant another fight, and eager and impatient hearts were beating 
throughout the silent ranks. 

Lord Lucan took and read with angry eyes the hurriedly writ- 
ten lines. Then, glaring at the aide-de-camp, he broke forth 
into his ill-tempered and insubordinate tirade against the order. 
He had not even carefully read the words. He was obliged to 
admit in his report two days after, that he was " instructed to 
make a rapid advance to prevent the enemy carrying the guns 
lost by the Turkish troops in the morning;" but now, ready to 
snarl and find fault, he chose to think that he was ordered to 
attack the strong position of the Cossack battery way down the 
valley. Seated on their horses, a low ridge in their front pre- 
vented Lucan and his staff, so he said, from seeing the guns 
themselves, and this gave him another opportunity. 

Feeling that no time was to be lost, and that he was called 
upon to answer the denunciation of the order, Captain Nolan, 
still respectfully (though with marked emphasis, for he was burn- 
ing with zeal and impatience, and raging in his heart at this per- 
sistent old obstructer of all cavalry enterprise), replied : " Lord 



Io8' BALACLAVA. 

t 

Raglan's orders are, that the cavalry should attack immedi. 
ately." 

And then again, angrily, even contemptuously, Lord Lucan 
spoke : 

"Attack, sir ! Attack what? What guns, sir ? " 

It was too much for Nolan's fiery nature. Throwing back his 
head, and pointing over his shoulder, the young captain answered 
in a most significant manner : 

" There, my lord, is your enemy ; there are your guns." 

And Lord Lucan declares that he pointed not towards the 
Causeway Heights, but squarely down the valley towards the 
Cossack battery. 

It is too poor, too pitifiil an excuse for a man of Lucan's 
character to urge, but urge it he did. He held in his hand the 
order which set down in black and white the guns he was to 
ride at, and he ignored that order, permitted the thoughtless 
gesture of an irritated staiT-officer to take its place, and — 
launched in the gallant Light Brigade to its martyrdom. 

Turning away in hot-headed wrath, alone and unattended, he 
rode out to where Cardigan sat, in front of the light dragoons 
and lancers. The Heavies had done their share of the sharp 
work. Now the " fine gentlemen " should have their turn. 
Nolan's rebuke was audible to half the command, and Lord 
Lucan was in no fit frame of mind to consider the case. When 
the question arose next day as to who was responsible for the 
slaughter, Cardigan and Lucan differed utterly in their state- 
ments. Lucan declared that he told Cardigan simply " to ad- 
vance, keeping his men well in hand," and did not order an 
attack. Cardigan said that his orders from Lucan were explicit 
— "Attack the enemy in the valley " — and the weight of testi- 
mony would go to show that Cardigan tells the truth. Lord 
Lucan was confessedly in an excited and angered frame of 
mind. Cardigan was utterly cool and composed, far better fit to 
judge exactly what was said. But that is not all. There is 
even stronger evidence that Lord Lucan gave the order to at- 
tack the battery at the other end of the valley, for he admits 
that Cardigan's next words were as Cardigan himself reports 



LUCAN AND CARDIGAN DISAGREE. I09 

them, and the latter would have had no occasion to use the 
words, if he had not understood that the order required him to 
move squarely down the valley between the bristling heights. 
It seems that on receiving the instructions of his division 
commander. Lord Cardigan lowered his sword in salute and 
said : 

"Certainly, sir; but allow me to point out to you that the 
Russians have a battery in the valley in our front, and batteries 
and riflemen on each flank," and Lord Lucan, shrugging his 
shoulders, answered : " I know it, but Lord Raglan will have 
it, and we have no choice but to obey," and so saying, he con- 
demned his heroic men to a wild and senseless assault that Lord 
Raglan never for an instant contemplated, and that had he been 
any kind of a cavalry-soldier. Lord Lucan could never have 
ordered. The Light Brigade was to charge through a mile-long 
lane of batteries and riflemen, and attack directly in front, twelve 
guns supported by ten times their force in cavalry, and while 
Lucan promised to support with the Heavy Brigade, and 
D'Allonville, with the French cavalry, proposed to attack the 
Russians on the Fedioukine Heights, and the infantry divisions 
vyere moving down upon the plain, Lord Cardigan knew that the 
whole brunt 'of the action would fall upon him and his gallant 
little regiments ; but with one sweeping glance along their eager 
ranks, he gave his quiet order. 

The brigade was drawn up in two lines. The first was made 
up of the Thirteenth Light Dragoons, Seventeenth Lancers and 
the gorgeous Eleventh Hussars; the second, of the Eighth Hus- 
sars and the Fourth Light Dragoons ; but as Lord Cardigan placed 
himself in front, and calmly ordered " The brigade' will advance," 
Lucan himself directed Colonel Douglas with the Eleventh 
Hussars to fall back and act in support, and so it happened that 
as the brilliantly uniformed little command swept forward, three 
distinct lines were noticed ; Cardigan himself, glittering in the 
gold-trimmed pelisse and crimson trousers of his pet regiment, 
the Eleventh Hussars, rode well out to the front of all. Captains 
Oldham of the Thirteenth and Morris of the Seventeenth led 
the centres of their regiments. Colonel Douglas appeared in 



no BALACLAVA. 

front of the beautiful squadrons of the Eleventh, and Lord 
George Paget and Colonel Shewell led those of the Fourth and 
Eighth in the rear. 

It was a glorious moment. The eyes of five nations were 
fixed on that enthusiastic little command as the "Six Hundred" 
shook free their bridle-reins, grasped firmly lance or sabre, and 
at quiet walk disengaged themselves from the lines of the 
Heavy Brigade, and, ascending the gentle slope before them, 
came upon the low ridge which, curtain-like, had shut off their 
view down the valley, and now the whole scene lay before them. 
Off to their right front on the Causeway, the Russians were 
hurriedly hitching and driving off the captured guns. These 
slopes were clear of rock or tree. Nothing intervened between 
them and the retreating infantry and the scurrying teams to 
prevent a full, free gallop up, and in among the captured guns. 
All that was needed was a quarter zuheel to the right to bring 
them directly upon the proper course, a slight deflection of not 
more than thirty degrees. Square to their front they could see 
the dark-gray masses of Ryjoff's squadrons, and the black 
blotches of the Cossack guns and gunners across the valley ; 
while both on right and left-front, on Causeway crest and 
Fedioukine, the slopes were thick with guns and riflemen. For 
weeks they had been chafing with eagerness for just such a 
sight. The chivalry, the knightood, the " gallants of England " 
rode in those dainty ranks, and all athrob with exultant, daring' 
courage, they pressed forward in eager desire to show the world 
the mettle of the Light Brigade. 

Far back on the Sapoune Heights all eyes are strained in 
eager and confident gaze upon their move. From Lord Raglan 
down, every spectator expects to see them wheel or incline 
slightly to the right, then take the trot, gallop and sweep across 
the valley to the Causeway Heights. No one questions for an 
instant their ability to retake the guns, even though the Russian 
foot turn back to defend them. Already they have moved some 
two hundred yards to the front. Scarlett's heavies are begin- 
ning their advance. DAllonville's Chasseurs d'Afrique are 
crossing to the left front, just under the Chersonese, and still 



THE LIGHT BRIGADE DARTING INTO DEATH. Ill 

Cardigan is riding straight forward. " Why don't he wheel ? " 
is the anxious question. Then a trumpet-call floats upward 
from the plain below. "Ah ! there goes the signal. Now he's 
all right," say some with a sigh of relief " No, by heaven ! 
it was trot he sounded. Look, look ! " is the excited cry of 
another looker-on. What can it mean? what cmi it mean ? In- 
stead of changing direction to the right the Light Brigade has 
taken a rapid trot and is moving straight down the valley in the 
very teeth of the Russian guns, and see ! there goes Lucan with 
the Heavies almost in their tracks, God of battles, what mad- 
ness ! what suicide ! Is there no way to stop them ? Can noth- 
ing be done ? Staff-officers leap into saddle. Strong men 
burst into tears of rage and dismay. Vain every word of recall. 
No horse can catch them now. The Light Brigade is darting 
into death. 

Off on the Causeway Heights, feeling sure that they must be 
the object of attack, the infantry are forming squares to resist 
cavalry. The riflemen are running to cover, the guns are " lim- 
bering-up ; " out even as skirmishers run and gunners work, their 
officers note, first with incredulity, then amaze, then exultation, 
that the brilliant horsemen are not coming their way. Passing 
them by they are rashly, daringly trotting to the very jaws of 
destruction, heading down the valley. For an instant the 
battery-men cannot realize the truth. Then the stern word 
of command brings them to their senses, quickly the guns are 
swung about, the black muzzles trained down into the valley^ 
the shells rammed home, and in another instant, right, left and 
front, the ten gallant squadrons are enveloped in the smoke of 
an hundred guns, and round-shot, shell and canister are shriek- 
ing through the devoted ranks. Then the pace quickens ; a 
dense cloud of mingled shell-smoke and dust settles in the 
vall^, and with the thundering roar of the Russian guns shak- 
ing the earth and dinning their ears, the amazed and grief- 
stricken spectators on the Chersonese take their last look at the 
Light Brigade. It is swallowed up in " the jaws of hell." 

Lord Cardigan had received his orders with becoming courtesy 
and respect, had pointed out to his very much detested brother- 



I 12 BALACLAVA. 

in-law the extreme peril of the attack which the latter had 
ordered, and then, finding him inflexible, had contented himself 
with saying to Lord George Paget, colonel of the Fourth 
dragoons : " I expect your best support. Mind, Lord George, 
your best support," and then had taken his place way in front 
of everybody and given the order to advance. From this mo- 
ment he never once looked back until the charge was over 
Once well forward in plain view of the enemy he had struck a 
rapid trot, th^ brigade took up the same gait, and then, without 
a word from any one except an occasional " Steady," " Keep 
back there on the right," " Back left flank," or a caution to some 
too eager trooper, the Six Hundred swept onward. And now 
came the first tragedy. 

Having given his instructions to Lord Lucan, Captain Nolan 
had ridden back among the file-closers in rear of the Seventeenth 
lancers, and was gleefully congratulating his comrades on the 
brilliant prospect before them, when the trumpets sounded the 
advance, and Nolan, drawing his sword, determined to have " his 
share of the dance." For a moment or two he ft)de in rear of 
the Seventeenth, for by the etiquette of the British cavalry only 
commanders of regiments or squadrons could lead in a charge ; 
but all of a sudden there came the signal to trot, and then to 
his dismay Nolan saw that instead of sweeping around to the 
right towards the Causeway, the brigade was going straight 
ahead down the valley — the very last place they should go. In 
utter consternation now, forgetting all formality, he dashed 
around the left flank of the lancers and obliquely across the 
front of the brigade, well out in front of Lord Cardigan himself, 
shouting: "This way, this way," and pointing with his sword 
towards the guns on the Causeway. Cardigan, furious at such 
a piece of audacious interference on part of a mere captain, paid 
no attention whatever to his vehement signals, and would 
doubtless have ordered him out of the way, when a shell, burst- 
ing in air, sent a whirring fragment through the gallant breast of 
the foremost soldier, and, with his heart torn in twain, with his 
sabre arm still uplifted, with an appalling death-cry on his lips, 
poor Louis Nolan, a superb horseman even when his sov\ had 



NOLAN THE FIRST VICTIM. II3 

fled, rode back a corpse through the interval between the lancers 
and dragoons, and there the life-ridden body slowly toppled from 
the saddle and sank to earth. With him went the last chance 
of saving the Light Brigade. Its most enthusiastic champion, 
Nolan was the first to fall. 

And now with shot and shell crashing through their ranks his 
comrades are spurring on. No one cares to ask where they arc 
going. No one " reasons why." Deeper into the snioke-black- 
cned valley they plunge ; horses and men going headlong to 
earth every instant, and still at that relentless, inflexible trot, no 
faster, no slower, Cardigan leads them down. Enveloped in a 
perfect hell of fire, closing in their shattered ranks, they keep on 
their desperate way ; no guide now but the flash of those death- 
dealing guns in front ; no support or aid of any kind, for Lucan 
is almost but of range behind, and D'Allonville has not yet 
reached the Fedioukine. One-half the leading rank is by this 
time shot away, and the supports are riding over prostrate corses 
of charger and trooper, or striving to leap over or by many a 
struggling fonn. Riderless horses with piteous cries are crowd- 
ing into their old places in the ranks with that strange instinct 
that leads all old chargers to seek their accustomed place in 
the turmoil of battle. Other horses, some dragging the senseless 
form of their masters, crowd between the squadrons. Others still 
range alongside the squadron leaders of the second and third 
lines. Lord George Paget has to use his sword to free himself 
from their gory flanks. The fire is so murderous that Captain 
White, of the Seventeenth, eagerly strives to force the pace and 
get in among the guns ; but Cardigan, martinet to the last, sternly 
checks him until they are within a hundred yards of the battery, 
and then, with one mad impulse, the first line, dragoons and 
lancers, leaps forward at racing speed into the bank of smoke, and 
all formation is lost in the dash of the hunting-field. One last 
salvo is given by the battery, a parting salute that sweeps down 
many a superb soldier, for here Captains Oldham and Goad, of 
the Thirteenth, and Winter and Thompson, of the Seventeenth, 
are killed. Captains White and Webb and Sir William Gordon 
are hurled to earth, and Sir George Wombwell, Cardigan's aide, 



114, BALACLAVA. 

loses his horse. Only some fifty men, all told, are left to repre- 
sent that heroic front line ; but " plunged in the battery smoke " 
in they rush, Cardigan and Morris leading faultlessly on, and 
with one ringing cheer they burst upon the cavalry supports be- 
hind the battery. Morris' sword is driven to the hilt through the 
body of the Russian squadron leader, and, as the transfixed 
corpse goes crashing to the ground, Morris himself, hacked over 
the head by furious swordsmen, falls senseless upon the body of 
his victim. Then in come the light horsemen of the Eleventh 
Hussars, cruelly, pitifully diminished in numbers, but still superb 
in their array ; and, abandoning their guns, the Russians wheel 
about and flee in terror for the valley of the Tchernaya behind 
them. 

Shewell, with the single squadron of the Royal Irish, is driv- 
ing a whole regiment of gray-coated cavalry. Douglas and 
Paget, with the remnant of the Eleventh and Fourth, are hewing 
at the backs of the fugitive squadrons. All is in precipitate 
retreat before the battle-thinned bands of English horsemen ; 
but, little by little, the Russian officers are able to see that they 
are pursued by a mere handful, and call upon their men to halt 
and rally ; little by little the pursuers pause for breath and look 
about them, and then comes the moment when what is left of 
the Light Brigade finds it necessary to fall back. It has ridden 
deep into the very centre of an overpowering enemy. It is 
utterly without support. It has made the most daring and 
desperate charge in the annals of history. Two-thirds of its 
numbers are stretched dead, dying or wounded upon their torn 
and blood-stained track, and now, the wearied survivors must 
" hark back " to their lines. A second time they must run the 
gauntlet of those guns and riflemen, and drifting back through 
the Cossack battery, now silent and abandoned, they come upon 
scores of these half-savage horsemen engaged in the brutal 
task of prodding to death the helpless and wounded troopers 
who had fallen in the charge. 

Slowly, painfully the survivors make their way towards the 
upper end of the now corpse-strewn valley, dark and sombre 
Wfder its heavy pall of battle-smoke, and, singly or in groups 



"IT WAS A MAD BRAINED TRICK." 115 

of two or three, they rejoin their unhorsed comrades who had 
been able to hobble to the starting-point. It is a sorry muster, 
and though a cheer goes up from the shattered group as some 
favorite officer or man comes forward to join them, all are sad 
and depressed. Cardigan orders them to " fall in," and directs 
the rolls to be called. " It was a mad-brained trick," he tells 
them; "but it was no fault of mine," and one can hardly see 
how Cardigan could be blamed after his interview with Lord 
Lucan just before the charge. He was no more popular among 
his officers than was the division commander, yet they say of 
him that from the moment of his reception of the order until all 
were obscured in the smoke of the Cos.sack battery he was the 
foremost man, and that he superbly led the charge of the Light 
Brigade. 

It was said of Lord Cardigan, however, that he came back too 
soon. It seems that after riding through the guns he found him- 
self surrounded by a number of Russian lancers, had a sharp 
struggle to free himself, was slightly wounded, and when he 
managed to get clear of them he could see nothing of his men 
except those who were now slowly retreating up the valley. He 
rode back to the Heavy Brigade (which Lord Lucan had halted 
under the fire of the Causeway guns, after losing some valuable 
officers and men) and burst out in a tirade of abuse of Nolan. 
It was pithily observed by an officer of the guards that day that 
whoever might be the really responsible party for that terrible 
blunder, the blame would be thrown upon poor Nolan, for he 
was dead and defenceless. Dead ! yes, and for a long time well- 
nigh defenceless, for the all powerful arm of the English aris- 
tocracy was thrown around the reputations of Lucan and Car- 
digan, and they, though relieved from their commands and 
returned to England, had tlie press of the nation, the house of 
peers and the tongues of the nobility and gentry to ventilate 
their side of the story. " The king can do no wrong," say the 
royalists. "A peer of England cannot blunder," is the military 
maxim that for years has sent many a gallant soldier to certain 
and needless death, because titled incompetents had to be grati- 
fied with important commands. Lucan's lamentable failur* **i 



ii5 Balaclava. 

the Crimea, Lord Chelmsford's wholesale sacrifice of the Twenty- 
fourth regiment at Isandlhwana are part and parcel of the same 
false system of appointment — family connection — " influence" — 
taking the place of soldierly merit, and then when her sons are 
slaughtered and somebody must bear the brunt, loyal England 
rises to the vehement defence of these high-born blunderers and 
casts the blame upon her martyred dead. 

And so it was with Louis Nolan. Despite the opinion of the 
cavalry division, and the statements of its officers, the nation for 
some time was carefully taught to believe that he was responsi- 
ble for the mad charge. Lords Lucan and Cardigan were speedily 
back in London telling their side of the story, but the soldiers 
were kept far away in the Crimea until little by little the bitter- 
ness of feeling died away; and then, link by link, slowly and 
carefully it was left to such a conscientious historian as Alex- 
ander Kinglake to elicit all the facts, to lay them before the 
world, and to exonerate the first and greatest victim of the 
Light cavalry charge. 

It had taken the "Heavies" just eight minutes to hack and 
hew the Russian cavalry to pieces. It took less than twenty 
minutes to destroy the Light Brigade. It rode in with 673 
horsemen. It came out with 195, and one regiment, the Thir- 
teenth Light Dragoons, could muster only ten men after the 
charge. The actual losses in killed and wounded were 247, 
officers and men ; but the number of horses killed and disabled 
was over 500, which accounts in a measure for the small force 
which the brigade was able to muster in saddle when reassem- 
bled in the north valley. 

The incidents of this wonderful exploit would fill a volume, 
but space forbids them here. Despite the terrible fire it had 
encountered, the Light Brigade had charged in front a powerful 
battery, and absolutely driven in disorder an army in position. 
Well might the admiring Frenchmen say of it : " It is magnificent; 
but it is not war." 




MALVERN HILL. 

1862 

BY JAMES H. WILLARD. 

HE bold dash of the Federal troops at Mechan- 
icsville, on May 23d, was followed by a 
general order which implied the immediate 
advance of the Army of the Potomac. "On 
to Richmond," was the cry in the ranks. " I 
will fight the enemy, whatever their force 
may be, with whatever force we may have," 
were the words of the Commander-in-Chief 
to the Secretary of War. But there was no 
vigor in McClellan's movements. Weary of this inaction, the 
patient President telegraphed : " I think the time is near when 
you must either attack Richmond, or give up the job and come 
lO the defence of Washington." Keyes and Heintzelman's corps 
had crossed the Chickahominy, and were within six miles 
of Richmond ; others were waiting for the completion of 
bridges across the stream ; was the substance of McClellan's 
reply. 

Emory's fourteen mile mud march, his furious charge, and 
the subsequent battle at Hanover Court-House, where Portei 
leinforced the gallant Martindale, were magnified by McClellan 
into " a truly glorious victory," while at the same time, he was 
criticising the Government for its conduct of the war, and mak- 
ing his usual request for more troops. 

Then followed the battles of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks 
Station, and the month of " masterful inactivity " along the un- 
healthy line of the Chickahominy, a few miles from the Con- 
federate capital. Next, the dashing cavalry leader. General J. 

119 



120 MALVERN HILL. 

E. B. Stuart, swept entirely around the Army of the Potomac, 
capturing prisoners, horses and mules ; burning wagon trains 
and forage schooners, and retiring at his leisure to Richmond. 
Oak Grove, where Hooker's division suffered a severe loss in 
killed and wounded, followed Stuart's destructive raid. Then 
Lee's attack on McClellan's right at Mechanicsville, brought 
about the second engagement at that point — resulting in victory 
for the Union forces. 

Abandoning the plan of offering Lee a general battle on the 
Chickahominy, or of a concentrated attack on Richmond, 
which would have cut off Lee from his base of supplies and the 
25,000 defenders of that city, McClellan commenced a retreat 
toward the James River. But the battle of Gaines' Mills was 
to be fought; where Porter with 35,000 men against an enemy 
70,000 strong, long withstood the terrible blows of the Con- 
federate brigades. At fearful cost to both sides, the Confeder- 
ates won this bloody field. 

Then Lee, looking for McClellan at the " White House," 
found that position abandoned and in flames. The objective of 
the P'ederal commander was a point near the James River, 
where he could have the cooperation of Commodore Rodgers' 
gunboats. No sooner had McClellan left Savage's Station, than 
Lee was in full pursuit. By his instructions, Magruder struck 
the rear of the Union column, but retreated after a furious con- 
flict. 

Not without a struggle did McClellan find himself in posses- 
sion of Malvern Hill, on June 30th, Longstreet and A. P. Hill 
had been in direct pursuit ; Magruder and Huger, by another 
road had followed his retreating troops. Halted by the de- 
struction of a bridge, Jackson was held at bay through the 
afternoon and evening, but the Union forces retired from this 
position during the night. At the same time, Glendale or 
Nelson's Farm was the scene of severe fighting. At this point 
— the intersection of two roads, Longstreet met McCall's divi- 
sion and fell heavily upon it. The Confederates were driven 
back at first, then they rallied and in turn drove the Union forces 
into the woods. The slaughter on both sides was te«*rible. An 



McCLELLAN ON THE GALENA. 121 

Alabama regiment captured Cooper's battery, only to lose it 
again with its own regimental standard. Randall's battery was 
captured by a Virginia brigade ; Meade was severely wounded ; 
McCall was captured. The Confederates retired upon the ar- 
rival of fresh Union troops. 

During this desperately fought battle, McClellan, according to 
his own report, was on board of a gunboat in the James River, 
or at his quarters some two or three miles from the scene of 
combat. He knew nothing of the engagement until "very late 
at night," when his aids gave him "the results of the day's 
fighting along the whole line, and the true position of affairs." 
During the night, the Union forces were withdrawn from the 
battlefield, and with the remainder of the Army of the Potomac, 
took up a strong position on Malvern Hill, early on July ist. 

Not being satisfied with the natural defences of this place, 
McClellan selected Harrison's Landing, a (ew miles down the 
river, as the " final location of the army and its depots." While 
at this point, on the Galena, the battle of Malvern Hill was be- 
gun. According to an officer of the Galena, McClellan was " a 
little anxious " as the reports of the signal officer were given, 
but he did not leave the gunboat until a message from the shore 
demanded his immediate presence. It was then late in the 
afternoon. In the evening, McClellan returned to the Galena. 

Lee intended to carry Malvern Hill by storm, and his plan in^ 
eluded an attack by Armitstead's brigade, followed by a general 
advance, for which the signal was to be a shout from Armit- 
stead's men as they threw themselves upon the enemy. It was 
between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, when Lee 
opened a heavy artillery fire upon Couch and Kearney, whose 
positions were in the order named, on the right of Porter, who 
held the left of the Union line. D. H. Hill advanced upon 
Couch, in the belief that he had heard the prearranged signal, 
only to find his troops unsupported, as by some miscarriage of 
orders, only a single battery had been ordered up. The Con- 
federates were beaten back in confusion, and the Union right 
bettered its position by an advance of several hundred yards. 

Porter received the attack of Magruder and Huger — a furious 
7 



123 MALVERN HILL. 

onslaught. Through dense woods, Kershaw's and Semnies 
troops swept hke a whirlwind, nearly to the muzzles of Porter's 
death-dealing guns. Wright, Malone and Anderson dashed 
against the Union line, more to the right ; Barksdale tried to 
break it near the centre. Repulsed at every point, a lull like 
that before a storm fell upon both armies. But not for long. 

D. H. Hill, in his report, described the Union position as 
" Tier after tier of batteries grimly visible on the plateau, rising 
in the form of an amphitheater, one flank of the Yankees pro- 
tected by Turkey Creek, and the other by gunboats." It was 
against these guns whose well-chosen positions were strength- 
ened by " slashings," that Lee, in the recklessness or despera- 
tion that characterized his conduct of the entire battle, hurled 
his columns for the second time. It was six o'clock in the 
evening when the reformed lines dashed from the pine forest, 
under cover of heavy artillery fire. At double-quick they swept 
across the open, only to be withered by a merciless fire of 
artillery and musketry. With criminal disregard of human life, 
brigade after brigade was sent into the maelstrom of death, only 
to meet the fate of its predecessor. An hour later. Sickles' and 
Meagher's brigades grappled the fresh troops under Jackson, 
who were bearing heavily upon Porter and Couch, The fight- 
ing was furious, frightful. Shot and shell from gunboats in the 
river tore great gaps in the assailing ranks. Turning in despair, 
the Confederates fled from the Golgotha of Malvern Hill, and 
sought shelter in the forests and ravines. 

The Union victory was decisive, but McClellan did not follow 
up the advantage he had gained. The greatest disorder pre- 
vailed in his army on the morning after the battle, according to 
the reports of his own ofificers. " Thousands of straggling men 
asking every passer-by for their regiment; ambulances, wagons, 
and artillery obstructed every road." The Confederate loss was 
never reported. McClellan reported his losses from the battle 
of Mechanicsville to the withdrawal of his army from Malvern 
Hill as, 1,582 killed, 7,709 wounded, and 5,958 missing, — an 
aggregate loss of 15,249. 

From Malvern Hill, the Army of the Potomac fell back to 



THE CAMPAIGN ENDED. 



123 



Harrison's Landing, in obedience to the orders of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief. The campaign against Richmond was ended, 
with the victorious army hardly more than a day's march from 
the enemy's capital city. 

Great dissatisfaction, and something like consternation spread 
throughout the army as the result of this remarkable order. 
Fitz-John Porter, a devoted adherent of McClellan, uttered an 
indignant protest. Kearney, in the presence of several officers, 
put himself on record as follows : " I, Philip Kearney, an old 
soldier, enter my solemn protest against this order for a retreat. 
We ought, instead of retreating, to follow up the enemy and 
take Richmond ; and in full view of all the responsibilities of 
such a declaration, I say to you all, such an order can only be 
prompted by cowardice or treason ! " 




A r« t PORtnt 0»M>* 



OOM^BOCRATil 



BATTLEFIELD OF MALVERN HILL. 



MANASSAS, 



OR 



SECOND BULL RUN. 




1862. 



N telling of the battles of our own land there is 
little need for preliminaries. Thanks to our 
public school system, almost every boy or girl 
in America knows the history of the great war 
waged between the North and the seceding 
States of the South. The North fought to pre- 
serve the Union, the South for utter indepen- 
dence. The far-seeing statesmen of the Union 
knew well that, with the bond once broken, the 
nation as such would speedily fall to pieces. The political lead- 
ers of the South, who, for years, through the democratic party, 
had been accustomed to govern the entire country, found them- 
selves " out of power " by the election of Abraham Lincoln to 
the Presidency ; and, being determined either to rule or ruin, 
called upon their brave and devoted people to follow them, cut 
loose from the Union, and set up an administration of their own 
against the general government. The flag of the United States 
was shot down at Sumter, and the North sprang to arms to 
defend the capital city from the attack already menaced. The 
President called upon the militia, and Washington was saved. 
Then came the first attempt to chastise the South. Big Bethel 
and Bull Run were the consequences. The North woke up to 
a realization of the fact that the South could fight most gallantly 
and scientifically, and that not three months but three years, not 
seventy-five thousand but seven hundred and fifty thousand men, 

125 



126 MANASSAS. 

■would be needed to bring it to terms, A great army had to be 
raised, drilled and disciplined, and, as the only man who had 
met with any success, small or great, so far, George B. McClellan 
was put at the head of the raw organization ; the veteran Scott 
gracefully retired, and the hopes, prayers and the enthusiastic 
admiration of the nation centred in the young general, thus 
suddenly lifted to nearly supreme command. 

He had a colossal task before him. With all its patriotism, 
the North contained about as unmilitary a population as ever 
lived. The arts of peace and the pursuit of " the almighty dol- 
lar " had absorbed the entire attention of all but a very small 
portion of its law-abiding and pacific citizens. Not one man in 
fifty knew the use of rifle or pistol ; not one in a hundred could 
bestride a horse without making a guy of himself Some few 
fine militia organizations existed in New York, Massachusetts = 
and Pennsylvania, but, as a rule, military exercises were frowned 
upon by the press, military associations denounced by the pulpit, 
and military dress or bearing sneered at, if not insulted, by the 
public. The maxim of our great Washington, " In time of 
peace prepare for war," was utterly ignored. It sometimes 
happened that vacancies existed in the cadetships at the 
national military academy at West Point, for which no appli- 
cants would be found in the congressional districts of the 
North. Even the allurement of being fed, clothed, educated 
and paid by the general government was not sufficient to over- 
come, in many communities, the prejudice against the profession 
of arms. 

Not so in the South. From the days of the revolution its 
men were bred to a life in the saddle, and skilled in the use of 
fire-arms. The young man who was not a bold rider and a 
passable shot was looked upon almost as a milksop among his 
comrades. More than that, by sisters, sweethearts and wives. 
Contempt for danger and death was a part of the Southerner's 
creed. He was forced to assume it whether he felt it or not, 
and however harmful, pernicious and lawless may have been the 
system, the "code," as it was called, that made men answerable 
to an opponent's pistol for any offence from direct insult to 



MILITARY SPIRIT IN THE SOUTH. ^^l 

trivial discourtesy, had the effect of teaching the South the use 
of arms, and made ready soldiers of its people. 

The war with Mexico, an unpopular contest in the minds of 
Northerners, created a whirlwind of enthusiasm throughout the 
South. From that time every Southern family of prominence 
was represented in the army. The best names, the best blood, 
the best intellects in the South, were found in the military ser- 
vice of the nation. Successive Presidents sought among South- 
ern politicians for their secretaries of war, and such men as 
Conrad, Jefferson Davis and John B. Floyd eagerly seized every 
opportunity to fill the vacancies that went a begging in the 
North, with importations from the South. The army was con- 
trolled, led, influenced and taught by Southerners; West Point 
was imbued with the doctrine of States' rights, and the battalion 
of cadets was virtually commanded by Southern officers. The 
Northern States had one military school worthy of mention as 
such, outside of West Point. The South was full of them. The 
North had only three or four military organizations to which a 
gentleman could belong without losing caste in society. The 
South was full of companies, battalions or batteries which its 
people gloried in. Southern graduates of West Point stuck to 
the army and made it their home. Northern graduates in great 
numbers resigned and went into civil life. Northern cadets who 
failed to pass their examinations, and were returned to their 
homes, went back as a rule disgusted with their ill-success, and 
strove to conceal the fact that they had ever been at West Point 
Southern boys in a like predicament went home and put what 
they had learned to some account in their local militia. Between 
the Mexican war and 1861 there were two hundred and forty- 
four appointees from slave States who failed to be graduated ; 
there were dozens more who, though appointed "At Large,'* 
hailed from the South, and so in addition to the large number 
of Southern officers who were commissioned as graduates of the 
academy, the South was full of admirably instructed young 
company and battery commanders when our great war broke out. 

As an instance of this we cite the distinguished Virginia 
family of Taliaferro. Six of its men between the years 181$ 



128 MANASSAS. 

and tS^g entered West Point, none succeeded in getting 
through, yet some of those Tahaferros were admirable soldiers, 
and one of them a division commander under Stonewall Jack- 
son. Other distinguished Southern names there were that ap- 
peared for a time upon the rolls at the Military Academy, 
and, afterwards, shone brilliantly on Southern battle-fields — 
Armisteads, Andersons, Gordons, Locketts, Rossers, Coopers, 
Garnetts, Wilcox, Robertson (of Texas) and dozens more. FroMi 
first to last, the South never lacked for accomplished officers, 
and, at the start, we of the North were hard pushed to find 
soldiers of any kind. In this emergency the government re- 
ceived with open arms large numbers of soldiers of fortune 
from across the sea — men who had no earthly interest in our 
mortal struggle, and only came to us attracted by liberal pay 
and the easily obtained command of regiments, even of brigades. 
For the first year of the war, while our serious, plodding and 
hard-studying volunteer officers were learning their duties, these 
brilliantly uniformed and heavy moustachioed foreigners swag- 
gered about the streets of New York, Philadelphia and Wash- 
ington, lionized and feted by scores and hundreds; but by the 
second year they were seen only occasionally in the camps and 
field; many of them drifted into the Eleventh corps and ran like 
sheep before " Stonewall " Jackson's men at Chancellorsville and 
Gettysburg, and by the third year of the war most of their 
names had dropped from the muster-rolls, and few had attained 
honorable distinction. The war was fought out by Americans, 
as a rule, " native and to the manner born." 

The Southern forces completely whipped the undisciplined 
militia of the North at Bull Run in July, i86i. Then McClellan 
proceeded to organize the Army of the Potomac, and after 
eight months of incessant drill and preparation, led it to the 
peninsula between the York and the James rivers, fought his 
way slowly up towards Richmond, gaining some slight successes, 
but, being badly worsted along the Chickahominy, was compelled 
to " change his base " to the James river. He made a superb 
fight at Malvern Hill, and, had he followed up the advantage 
there gained, his victorious troops might have marched into 



GENERALS HALLECK AND POPE LOOM UP. I29 

Richmond ; but McClellan was over-cautious. He had not 
thorough confidence in all his corps commanders, nor had all 
of them thorough confidence in him. He had organized and 
built up this admirable army fi-om a chaos of raw regiments, 
but he failed to handle it to the best advantage. Southern gen- 
erals spoke of McClellan as a " book-soldier," whose every move 
they could anticipate, and in the North, thanks to the fears of the 
administration for the safety of the capital, he had been greatly 
hampered by conflicting orders, and compelled to take the field, 
leaving behind him some 40,000 men upon whose services he 
had counted. 

And now after Malvern he clamored for reinforcements to aid 
him in a projected onward move; but he had not the confidence 
of the President and Cabinet, and though he had with him 
nearly ninety thousand men and was eager to resume operations, 
the answer was an order to abandon the peninsula and bring his 
army back to Acquia Creek on the Potomac. We had then 
been fighting nearly a year, and the South had had by far the 
best of it. 

Before issuing the order recalling McClellan from the penin- 
sula a new army, composed of the fine corps of McDowell, 
ind the troops hitherto serving under Banks and Fremont in 
Northern and Western Virginia, had been organized in front of 
Washington. It was called " The Army of Virginia," and its 
first duty was to be the defence of the national capital. About 
the same time the President, in his grievous perplexity and dis- 
tress of mind, summoned from the West two generals who had 
been prominently and successfully before the public during the 
first year of the war in their campaigns along the Mississippi. 
These officers were Henry W. Halleck, who was called to 
Washington to be general-in-chief, and John Pope, who was as- 
signed to the new command, the Army of Virginia. Any lin- 
gering vestige of cordiality between the Cabinet and General 
McClellan was destroyed from this moment, and the army 
itself became divided in sentiment — many officers and men 
enthusiastically calling themselves champions of the cause of 
their still popular young general ; others preferring to stand by 



130 MANASSAS. 

the actions of the general government, right or wrong. General 
HaUeck never succeeded in getting on smoothly with any of the 
commanders of the Army of the Potomac, and General Pope's 
very first move was one that called down upon him the animosity 
of General McClellan's adherents. He issued a " pronuncia- 
mento " to his new command, making comparisons that were 
emphatically odious between the methods of the Eastern army 
and those of the Western men with whom he had been asso- 
ciated. It was a most unfortunate start. 

However, General Pope had nearly 50,000 men, and with 
them he moved forward along the line of the Orange and Alex- 
andria railway towards Gordonsville, and General Lee, feeling 
assured that McClellan had no more desire for fight at that mo- 
ment, sent " Stonewall " Jackson, his great lieutenant, with two fine 
divisions, to go up and see what he could do with Pope. Early 
in August he further reinforced Jackson, who on the 7th and 8th 
of that month crossed the Rapidan with his own division and 
those of Ewell and A. P. Hill. On the 9th Jackson's command 
encountered the corps of General Banks at Cedar Mountain, 
and a spirited battle took place in which the untried troops of 
Banks behaved admirably against the veterans of the South, but 
General Halleck at Washington was greatly alarmed for the 
safety of -the capital, and then it was that the Army of the 
Potomac was hurried back from the peninsula to the support of 
Pope. The moment McClellan fell back from Harrison's Land- 
ing on the James, General Lee with his whole available com- 
mand, except the garrison of Richmond, marched northward in 
all haste. His plan was to fall upon and crush Pope out of 
existence before McClellan's men, moving round by water from 
Fortress Monroe, could reach and relieve him. 

On the 15th of August Longstreet's and Hood's divisions 
reached Gordonsville with Stuart's cavalry. On the 20th Jack- 
son and Longstreet crossed the Rapidan, and Pope fell back be- 
hind the Rappahannock, holding the fords in strong force, and 
now the two armies, Lee's veterans and Pope's almost untried 
troops, stood facing each other along that storied stream. The 
Southern general learned that reinforcements from McClellan's 



STUART IN POPE'S REAR. I31 

army were already in march to join Pope, and that Reno's divi- 
sion of Burnside's corps (just returned from the expedition to 
the North CaroHna coast) had ah-eady arrived from Acquia 
creek. No time was to be lost. He had not more than 70,000 
men with him, and Pope n]ight soon have twice that number. 
General Lee ordered up from Richmond the divisions of McLaws 
and D. H. Hill, and Wade Hampton's cavalry, and at once set 
about the task of giving Pope a beating before his supports could 
arrive. . 

The Northern army, on the 20th of August, occupied the north 
bank of the Rappahannock from Kelly's ford to a point some 
three or four miles above the railway bridge. On the 2 1st Lee 
appeared in force along the south bank, and all that day and the 
next the batteries of the opposing armies hammered away at one 
another without much effect. The Southern generals found 
every ford strongly guarded and were unable to force a passage. 
Then that irrepressible Stonewall Jackson obtained the consent 
of his chief, moved farther " up stream," crossed Early's brigade 
at Sulphur Springs above Pope's army, and would probably 
have essayed his favorite manoeuvre of attacking our flank had 
not a violent storm set in. The torrents of rain that fell con- 
verted the placid Rappahannock into a raging flood. Jackson 
could not get across to support Early, and Early was in desperate 
danger of capture or destruction ; but his energetic officers 
patched up a ricketty bridge, and the brigade got back to thq 
lower bank in safety. Meantime the daring cavalry leader, 
Stuart, with only a few hundred troopers, had crossed the Rappa- 
hannock at Waterloo bridge, swept round the rear of Pope's 
army, struck the railway at Catlett's Station, captured all the 
headquarters' papers and baggage, three hundred prisoners and 
a quantity of provisions, set fire to the station, and trotted gayly 
off in the darkness, laughing at the consternation his dash had 
created in the camps of the headquarters and convoy guards. 
Luckily for " the Army of Virginia " the night was so very dark 
that Stuart failed to see that an immense train of supplies and 
provisions was parked near the station. He rode away without 
burning either that or the railway bridge, as he might easily 
have done. 40 



132 MANASSAS. 

And now, after the storm, General Pope extended his lines to 
the west, sending the corps of Sigel and Banks up to Sulphur 
Springs, where Early had crossed and recrossed. On the other 
side Longstreet's command covered the whole front recently 
occupied by his and Jackson's combined; and, on the 25th of 
August, with the entire consent of General Lee, Stonewall Jack- 
son set forth on an expedition that was daring to the verge of 
insanity ; a piece of recklessness that nothing but absolute con- 
tempt for his adversary could justify, and that nothing but the 
greatest good luck could withhold from dire disaster. For four 
days Pope with 50,000 men, obedient to the vehement orders of 
Halleck to " fight like the devil," and hold the line of the Rappa- 
hannock, had been foiling Lee's direct attempts to cross with 
70,000. Time was precious, and Jackson, who knew every bridle 
or wood-path in the country, urged a bold move. The map will 
show the whole scheme. Pope's supplies and reinforcements 
could reach him only by the line of the Orange and Alexandria 
railway, and the broad turnpike from Alexandria to Warrenton. 
The former passes through Manassas Junction south of the old 
Bull Run battle-field of the previous year; the latter goes right 
through it, crossing Bull Run on the stone bridge which be- 
came famous that hot July Sunday. Warrenton is a pretty 
country town lying among the bold hills that form the southern 
end of the low, wooded range known as Bull Run mountains. 
Beginning here near Warrenton this range runs nearly due north 
to the Potomac near Leesburg, and it is crossed or penetrated by 
only three roads of any account — one near Leesburg, one at 
Aldie from Fairfax, and south of these by the Manassas Gap 
railway and the parallel well-travelled road at Thoroughfare 
Gap, a crooked and easily defensible pass that lies about 
five miles west of Gainesville, where the railway, the War- 
renton pike and the Gap road all meet. About fifteen miles 
south of east of Gainesville lies Manassas Junction, where the 
railways unite, and where immense stores of rations, clothing and 
ammunition were deposited. Jackson's plan was to make a 
forced march up the valley west of the Bull Run mountains, to 
push through Thoroughfare Gap, swoop down on Manassas 



STONEWALL JACKSON'S AUDACIOUS MOVE. 1 33 

Junction and destroy everything there before Pope could get 
back from the Rappahannock, or the Army of the Potomac get 
forward from Alexandria, to defend it. By letting him go and 
thus cfividing his army in two widely separated commands or 
wings. General Lee took the grave risk of having either half 
attacked by overwhelming numbers and of being "beaten in 
detail ; " but such was his confidence in Jackson's luck and 
ability that he took the risk without apparent hesitation. It was 
the most audacious thing even Jackson had yet attempted. 

Early on the morning of August 25th, with three veteran 
divisions, his own old division now led by Taliaferro, and those 
of Ewell and A. P. Hill, Jackson crossed the Rappahannock at 
Hinson's ford beyond Pope's outposts on the upper stream, 
reached the town of Orleans and then pushed boldly northward 
through the fertile valley. Stuart with his daring troopers rode 
well out on his right at the base of the hills so as to prevent 
Pope's cavalry from peering into his movements ; and so through 
the long August day in disciplined silence the sinewy footmen 
trudged along behind their trusted leader. He had forbidden 
all cheering, all noise of any kind. He led them through forest 
aisles and by short cuts across the fields, raising as little dust as 
possible. The guns came " clinking " along behind with that 
jingling rumble that all old artillerymen know so well. The 
wagons with their scanty rations were left far in rear, and the 
men had only a little hard tack in their lean haversacks, or 
munched the handfuls of parched corn given them by sympathiz- 
ing friends among the farms through which they passed ; but 
every now and then Jackson would rein in his raw-boned horse 
and take a look at them from under the shabby yellow-gray for- 
age cap he wore, pulled down over his keen eyes, and then they 
would tramp by him, waving their battered old felt hats until 
some irrepressible spirit would start a yell of delight, when the 
whole column would break into a chorus that old Stonewall 
had hard work stopping. Ragged, barefooted, hungry as they 
were, those magnificent fellows marched thirty-five miles that 
day, and never halted' until they reached the Manassas Gap rail- 
way at Salem just before sunset. There they bivouacked for the 



134 MANASSAS. 

night; rose before the sun on the 26th, pushed eastward through 
Thoroughfare Gap all unopposed, reached Gainesville on the 
Warrenton pike, and then, obedient to his orders to " break up 
his (Pope's) railroad communications with the Federal capital," 
Jackson swooped down on Bristoe Station -just at sunset, while 
Stuart galloped into Manassas Junction, took several hundred 
prisoners and eight guns, and made himself master of the vast 
supply of commissary and quartermaster's stores. It was the 
" biggest haul " made during the war, a God-send to the hungry 
and tattered soldiers; and one can readily imagine the merry 
night Stuart's men had in " fitting out " and feasting at the 
expense of Uncle Sam. 

Jackson destroyed Bristoe and the railway near it ; then, leav- 
ing Ewell as rear-guard, moved seven miles up the road to 
Manassas Junction, where he and the divisions with him pro- 
ceeded to help themselves to the provisions, new shoes, socks 
and underclothing so lavishly supplied them. In many cases, 
too, ragged gray uniforms were replaced by the spotless blue of 
the Union. The dust would soon make it as dingy as the old 
garb, so what was the difference? Eweil held his post at Bristoe 
until late in the afternoon of the 27th, when he was attacked by 
superior force and driven in; then he too backed up to Manassas 
and joined the main body. 

Meantime what had Pope been doing ? 

Jackson was well across the Rappahannock and west of 
Warrenton when tidings of his astonishing move were brought 
to the Northern general. In all probability the latter could not 
believe that even Jackson would dare separate himself by such 
a distance from the main army, and so, up to nightfall on the 
25th, half expected one of his impetuous attacks on the right 
flank. Reno and Sigel, who were at Sulphur Springs and Wa- 
terloo Bridge, were held in readiness to move wherever he might 
show his skirmish line, and McDowell's corps, composed of the 
strong divisions of King and Ricketts, moved up between War- 
renton and Sulphur Springs. To McDowell's command was 
here added a little division of 2,800 men, the remnants of 
McCall's Pennsylvania Reserves that so recently had been 



POPE'S GREAT OPPORTUNITY. 1 3 15 

severely handled on the peninsula, and John F. Reynolds had 
succeeded to the command of what was left of the division. But 
the 25th passed without attack from the west, though Longstreet 
kept everybody busy along the Rappahannock, and not until 
well along on the 26th did General Pope begin to realize what 
Jackson was driving at. It was with absolute delight he learned 
that the rash Virginian with not more than 30,000 men was 
between him and Washington, an easy prey to the overwhelming 
force he could throw upon him, for that very day the strong 
corps of Fitz John Porter and Heintzelman had arrived from the 
Army of the Potomac, and he knew that the rest of that army, 
the corps of Sumner and Franklin, were, or ought to be, in 
march from Alexandria to join him. 

On the night of the 26th he learned that Jackson and Stuart 
were on the railway behind him, and, facing about with a large 
portion of his command, he started early on the morning of the 
27th to surround and capture them. Leaving Generals Banks 
and Porter to look after Longstreet should he cross the Rappa- 
hannock in pursuit, Pope turned his back on General Lee and 
hurried northward, expecting very justly to "bag the whole 
crowd." Never had Northern commander such a chance before. 
McDowell was charged with the duty of heading Jackson off on 
the west and preventing his getting back through the gap. To 
this end, he with his own divisions, Sigel's corps and Reynolds' 
little command were ordered to hasten to Gainesville. Reno and 
Kearney with their divisions were to march " cross country," 
through Greenwich, ready to support either McDowell on the 
pike or Pope on the railway, which ever should first meet Jack- 
son ; and Pope himself with Hooker's division marched up the 
railway, leaving Porter at Warrenton Junction. The only way 
left for Jackson to get out of the scrape, apparently, was to push 
southeastward from Manassas Junction through a tangled and 
almost roadless country where his trains could not have followed 
him; but Jackson was taking things very coolly, as we have 
seen, and was in no way hurried. Not until late on the after- 
noon of the 27th did any engagement occur between his people 
and their pursuers. Then Ewell's men at Kettle Run were 



136 MANASSAS. 

fiercely attacked by Hooker and driven up the road. That 
night, Jackson's entire force was with him at Manassas, while 
Stuart's troopers, thrown out in every direction, covered him 
like an impenetrable veil. At Washington all was consterna- 
tion. Not a word could be heard from Pope. All wires were 
cut, all roads destroyed, all couriers captured by the active 
horsemen. General Halleck and the cabinet were ready to be- 
lieve that Lee's whole army was advancing upon them and that 
Pope was nowhere. 

But Jackson well knew he could not stay at Manassas. Dark 
as was the night of the 27th, after burning and destroying every- 
thing he could not use or take with him, he again called on his 
men and slipped out northward toward Sudley Springs, sending 
A. P. Hill off to the northeast and way around by Centreville. 
Pope felt sure he would attempt to get away towards the south 
and east, and so sent orders calling in Reno and Kearney to the 
railroad, and directing McDowell's command (which was biv- 
ouacked for the night of the 27th on the turnpike southwest of 
Gainesville) to march at early dawn along the Manassas Gap 
railway to the junction. This was all very well if Jackson would 
be idiot enough to stay there, or to attempt to cut through the 
woods to the lower Rappahannock, but Jackson meant to do 
neither. He knew well that Lee and Longstreet would follow 
on his trail to Thoroughfare Gap the moment Pope fell back 
from the river, and all he wanted was clear ground between him 
and Bull Run mountains, to enable him to make a junction with 
his friends the moment they should appear. If cut off from 
Thoroughfare, he could fall back to the northwest towards the 
upper gap at Aldie. 

Early on the morning of the 28th of August, Jackson with 
Ewell and Taliaferro crossed the Warrenton turnpike near Bull 
Run and kept on towards Sudley Springs. A. P. Hill as rear- 
guard was still hanging about the smouldering ruins of the 
trains at Manassas Junction. By eight o'clock Reno and Kear- 
ney had joined Hooker at Bristoe, and with these three divisions 
Pope made the seven mile march to the Junction, only to find 
that Jackson had given him the slip after doing incalculable 



JACKSON CROUCHING IN HIS LAIR. I37 

damage Buford with his cavalry had already been sent off 
towards Thoroughfare Gap to hold it, if possible, should Lee 
and Longstreet come that way, and Pope did not really know 
which way Jackson had gone when word was brought in that 
his rear guard was even then crossing Blackburn's ford on Bull 
Run, and moving towards Centreville. Instantly the Union 
general had to change all his plans. Kearney and Reno were 
hurried off in pursuit. Porter, who had finally worked up to 
Bristoe, was ordered up to Manassas Junction, and McDowell, 
who had already passed through Gainesville, and was approach- 
ing Manassas Junction from that point, was ordered to turn 
back, regain the Warrenton pike, and march on Centreville. It 
took hours to get things straightened out to meet the new situa- 
tion. 

Meantime, Jackson's craft had succeeded admirably. He had 
moved quietly into a very strong position north of the turnpike 
along the embankment of an unfinished railway that extended 
from Sudley Springs to Gainesville ; and here, while Stuart 
vigilantly watched everything off to the west — Jackson's right 
flank — he and his men, hidden in the leafy woods, rested quietly 
through the long summer day, while Hill led Kearney and Reno 
a veritable " wild goose chase " way up to Centreville. During 
the morning and afternoon the corps of Sigel and the little divi- 
sion of Pennsylvanians under Reynolds came trudging rather 
wearily through the fields from the southwest. Some shots 
were exchanged between the flankers and skirmishers, and the 
Union generals led their commands off into the woods along 
the Sudley Springs road-way, south of the pike, and waited for 
orders or instructions. They certainly had not expected to find 
Jackson there. About this time, too, came A. P. Hill from 
Centreville, " doubling on his tracks," and successfully eluding 
Kearney, who could even now be heard five miles away to the 
eastward volleying at the rear guard regiments of Hill's com- 
mand. Far off to the distant west, too, where the low blue line 
of the Bull Run Mountains spanned the horizon, the boom, 
boom of cannon told Jackson that Lee and Longstreet were 
fightmg their way through the Gap, and unless strenuously op- 
<8 



l^S MANaSSAS. 

posed, would be with him on the tnorrow. Evidently they were 
not opposed in force, since at least 13,000 Union troops had 
already marched eastward below Groveton, and Stuart was able to 
report that Buford's cavalry was falling back before Longstreet, 
who had even sent a force through Hopewell Gap, a rugged 
pass three miles higher up the range, and had turned the flank 
of Ricketts' division sent thither to help Buford ; and Ricketts, 
too, was falling back towards Gainesville. No wonder old 
Stonewall was in the best possible spirits. He had outwitted 
his antagonists, and he and his men were serenely sure of hold- 
ing their ground until reinforced. 

But was that all ? The day had passed without a fight so far 
as he was concerned, and his men, now refreshed, clothed and 
fed, were eager for a brush of some kind, and it was barely half- 
past five. Suddenly there came from down the road a burst of 
martial music, and a mile or so to the west there issued from 
the wood-roads leading to the Junction a solid, compact column 
of blue-clad infantry. Regiment after regiment filed out upon 
the pike, and, to the stirring marches of their bands, moved 
jauntily forward until finally four strong brigades were in sight, 
the leading one by this time directly opposite Ewell's position. 
It was King's division of McDowell's corps, ignorant of the 
proximity of either friend or foe, marching towards Centreville 
in compliance with the new orders. The sight was too much 
for Jackson and his men. Three light batteries hastily "hitched 
in," the first one ready, trotted out upon the slopes to the south, 
whirled around " in battery," and in another minute was thun- 
dering its salute at the waving colors of the blue column. 
. Somewhere about three o'clock that afternoon General Mc- 
Dowell, riding with General King through the woods down by 
Bethlehem Church, was met by Pope's order to turn back and 
make for Centreville as soon as he could regain the pike. Sigel 
and Reynolds were already somewhere off to the east near Bull 
Run, and King's men, resting meantime in the woods, were 
countermarched as soon as the way was clear. McDowell him- 
self was puzzled by the conflicting orders. He had taken the 
responsibility of detaching Ricketts and sending him back towards 



EWELL POUNCES ON GIBBON. 13^ 

Thoroughfare Gap from Gainesville, and now he decided to go 
and find General Pope, " with the best intentions in the world " 
of informing him as to the neighborhood, with which he thought 
himself familiar after his experience of the previous year ; but 
it may be said right here that McDowell not only did not find 
General Pope that afternoon or until the following day, but thnt 
he could not himself be found when greatly needed. 

Obedient to his orders General King had moved out on the 
pike towards five p. m. All was clear, the bands soon ceased 
their music, and the men trudged along at route step; the leading 
brigade (Hatch's) well ahead, passed over the Groveton ridge, 
and tlie next brigade came marching out from the shelter of 
some thick woods north of the pike. At its head rode General 
John Gibbon, recently commander of the fine battery of the 
Fourth (regular) artillery that accompanied the brigade. Three 
regiments of his command were from Wisconsin, one from 
Indiana. It was the only exclusively " far-western " brigade in 
the army then serving in Virginia, and it was a superb one. 
The instant its column was well out opposite the open slopes to 
the north, there came the sudden salute of Jackson's battery. 
"Halt!" rang along the ranks, and in another instant with 
cracking whips and charging steeds battery " B " came tearing 
up the road at full gallop. Gibbon himself placed it in position, 
opened rapid fire on the opposing guns ; then, calling to the 
Second Wisconsin to follow him, he plunged into the woods to 
his left front and rode forward intent on the capture of the 
Southern battery. Just beyond the skirt of woods the regiment, 
deploying, ran upon a skirmish line of infantry lying in the tall 
grass. Sharp musketry fire began at once ; the rest of the brigade 
was ordered forward and soon formed line on the Second Wis- 
consin, and then, to their utter amaze, there came sweeping over 
the low slopes before them six splendid brigades of infantry — 
Taliaferro's whole division and two brigades of Ewell's. Jack- 
son meant to have one rattling fight then before the sun went 
down. 

Well — he had it. It was the first time that western brigade 
had been engaged, but it won a name that night never forgotten 



140 MANASSAS. 

to this day. For one mortal hour it held its ground against 
those six brigades of Jackson's with what he termed " obstinate 
determination," though losing forty per cent, of its officers and 
men, and being eventually supported only by Doubleday's little 
brigade, which also suffered severely. Hatch and Patrick, com- 
manding the head and rear of King's column, did not get into 
action, for darkness put an end to the bloody combat by the 
time they reached the spot. Not one inch of ground had King's 
men yielded, and for once at least Jackson's celebrated division 
had met its match. Ewell lost a leg, Taliaferro was severely 
wounded, and a large number of field-officers of the Southern 
side had been killed. Far better would it have been for Jackson 
had he allowed that particular division to pursue its march un- 
molested. Yet the western brigade that had so heroically 
borne the whole brunt of the battle was fearfully cut up. Most 
of its field-officers were killed or wounded, and the ground was 
strewn with dead and dying. 

But they had found Jackson. The prisoners who were 
brought before General King stoutly affirmed that old Stone- 
wall was right there with from 40,000 to 60,000 men, and King, 
not knowing that Sigel's corps was only a few miles away, sent a 
note to Ricketts urging him to come to his support and that he 
would hold the ground until then. Staff-officers were sent to 
report the situation to Pope and McDowell, but neither Pope 
nor McDowell could be found in the darkness of the night, and, 
though they heard the firing and knew well that it must be 
King's division engaged with Jackson, they probably thought 
that Sigel and Reynolds were supporting him and sent no 
orders. Believing that Jackson was attempting to retreat to- 
wards Thoroughfare, and that Sigel, King and Reynolds with 
20,000 men were blocking the way, all their energies were 
centred on getting up troops to attack him in rear with the com- 
ing of day. But Jackson had not a thought of going. Secure 
in his position, and knowing that two of Longstreet's divisions 
were through the gap, he was only waiting until daybreak to 
pounce upon that isolated division of King that had given him 
so hard a tussle at sunset, and completely demolish it before 
supports could arrive. 



BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT OF POPE. I41 

King's brigade commanders had assembled after nine o'clock 
to talk over the situation with him, and this view of the case was 
strongly represented. He could not order Ricketts to abandon 
the work of detaining Longstreet and come to his assistance. 
No one was there who could give such orders. General Rey- 
nolds had ridden over through the woods and assured King that 
he was off there on his right, and all who knew Reynolds knew 
that as early as possible he would come ; but he was two miles 
off with only 2,800 men, and Jackson was already there with 
28,000. Prisoners said twice 28,000. The peril of the situation 
was evident to all. They could not stay where they were with- 
out every prospect of being annihilated at dawn ; so, urged by 
his brigade commanders, General King most reluctantly gave 
the order to fall back across the pike, and at one o'clock in the 
morning through the wooded roads, in the dense darkness, he 
and his wearied division groped their way off to the right in 
search of Manassas Junction and supports. Ricketts had halted 
at Gainesville for the night ; but on learning after midnight by a 
letter from General King of the move of that division, he roused 
his men and took the first road to the railway. It landed 
him at Bristoe Station early in the morning of the 29th, 
about the time that King and Porter met face to face *t the 
Junction. 

And so the road from Thoroughfare Gap to Jackson was left 
open. Longstreet pushed ahead, and by noon on the 29th his • 
leading troops were deploying, facing e'ast across the WarrcKton 
pike, and Stonewall Jackson was safely out of the tightest pUce 
in which he had ever marched his willing command. 

Bitterly disappointed as was General Pope, he was hopeful 
and energetic as ever. He came at all speed back from Centre- 
ville to the west bank of Bull Run, ignorant of the coming of 
Longstreet, and bent on crushing Jackson as the latter retreated. 
McDowell, who had bivouacked somewhere in the woods over 
night, unable to find his way in any direction, was again in 
saddle. Porter's fine corps had come up from Bristoe and wa? 
extended in long column on the road from the Junction oul 
towards Gainesville, its leading regiment having deployed asi 



142 MANASSAS. 

skirmishers across <^he little stream known as Dawkin's branch. 
King's wearied division, now only about 5,000 strong, was rest- 
ing by the roadside. Reynolds had early pushed out his 
skirmishers, and " felt " those of Jackson along the pike. Sigel 
during the morning made an unsuccessful attack and had kept 
up a scattering fire at the advance troops of Jackson's lines, but 
everything was uncertainty and confusion on the Union side, 
while with the army of Lee matters seemed to be going like 
clock-work. Longstreet and Lee had reached the field of battle ; 
the lines of the former's troops were actually deployed and ready 
to fight soon after noon on that much-disputed day, and General 
Pope fondly cherished the belief that only Jackson was in his 
front. 

Early in the afternoon, however, he was ready to resume the 
attack. Kearney, Reno and Sigel, facing west, were to assault 
from Sudley Springs on the north along Jackson's front. King's 
■and Ricketts' divisions were ordered to move up towards the 
pike by the Sudley Springs road ; and it was General Pope's 
plan that Porter's whole corps, facing northwest, should fall 
upon the right flank of the enemy, while he with all his force 
made a grand attack from the east. If it could have been 
promptly executed there would have been fair probabilil^ of a 
crowning success ; but just at the time it was desired that Porter 
should deploy his column, taking King's division with him, 
McDowell, his senior in rank, rode upon the field and gave con- 
flicting instructions — the nature of which has been a matter of 
dispute ever since. 

Then McDowell proceeded to take King's division away on a 
long march through the wood-roads to the right. Pope waited 
eagerly for the sound of Porter's guns before ordering his ready 
men to leap into the assault. Three o'clock, four o'clock came 
and went; nothing had been done. All ignorant of the misun- 
derstanding between Porter and McDowell, Pope believed that 
Porter was failing him at this most critical juncture, and Porter, 
who certainly could have done something better than remain 
absolutely inactive an entire afternoon, was " waiting further in- 
structions." He had been told that he should have King's divi- 



A DAY OF WRETCHED -MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 14J 

sion to support him in his attack, and, as McDowell had stepped 
in and taken King away, he did not seem to see fit to exert him- 
self 

Exasperated at this delay and inaction Pope at 4.30 p. m. sent 
a peremptory order to Porter to attack at once in force ; but it 
was a long way round, the order did not reach him until about 
six o'clock; and Porter, arguing that it would soon be too dark, 
and that Pope could not have known of Longstreet's presence 
when he wrote the order, decided not to obey. Consequently, 
when Pope's men advanced to the attack along the Bull Run 
lines, they were met by an unembarrassed and admirably posted 
enemy, mowed down by a withering fire, and the final charge, 
" a furious attack by King's division down the turnpike," was met 
and foiled by Hood's Texans of Longstreet's corps, whom it was 
hoped. Porter would have kept busy elsewhere. It was a day of 
wretched misunderstandings and balks of every kind ; and at 
nightfall the Northern army was tired, hungry and footsore, ex- 
cept Porter's command, which had done practically nothing. 
No rations were to be had west of Bull Run, and things looked 
very forlorn for the morrow. 

Nevertheless, General Pop=i was full of pluck, hope and spirit. 
He confidently believed that Jackson was bound to retreat ; he 
honestly thought he could crush him before reinforcements 
could reach him, and he issued orders that McDowell should 
conduct the pursuit and give chase on the 30th, and Jackson had 
not budged an inch and did not mean to. Porter was, ordered 
to bring his corps up to the pike and report in person the first 
thing in the morning, and at daybreak on the 30th of August 
the battle broke out with renewed fury. 

Already Pope had lost from six to eigbl thousand men, and 
"straggling" had become so universal that bis regiments were 
as greatly reduced in this way, as they were by battle, hunger 
and fatigue. He had gained absolutely nothing on the 29th. 
He knew now that Longstrcet was there before his left in full 
force, and that Lee in person was directing movements on liie 
Southern side. The obvious thing for the Union general to da 
was to fall back to the heights of Centreville, five miles away, 



144 MANASSAS. 

and there obtain provisions and make firm stand until reinforced 
by the corps of Franklin and Sumner, but the prisoners brought 
in from the skirmish lines before dawn said that " Jackson was 
retiring to unite with Longstreet " (very possibly they had been 
sent forward purposely to be taken and to tell that story), and 
to give color to it Jackson drew back some of Hill's men so as 
to make the embankment look abandoned in front of Hooker 
and Kearney. The wool was successfully pulled over Pope's 
eyes. He flashed off a message to Washington that the enemy 
was retreating to the mountains, and then ordered Porter's corps 
to rush in to the pursuit. 

But he had been obliged to spend the whole morning in re- 
arranging his lines. Hooker and Kearney were still on the 
extreme right near Sudley Springs ; Reno and Sigel opposite 
Jackson's centre ; King's reduced division next to Sigel ; then 
came Porter's corps (minus Griffin's brigade, which had unac- 
countably marched off to Centreville all by itself). Ricketts' 
division was supporting the commands of Hooker, Kearney and 
Reno, all north of the Warrenton pike, and nothing was left to 
hold the commanding hills south of that broad thoroughfare but 
the little division of John F. Reynolds, composed of the three at- 
tenuated brigades of Meade, Seymour and Jackson, no one of 
them as strong numerically as a good-sized regiment. Confident 
that all he had to do was to mass his whole force on what remained 
of " Stonewall " Jackson and make one grand assault. Pope 
gave no thought to the left of his line, and Lee and Longstreet, 
discovering this, sent the divisions of Jones, Kemper and Wilcox 
to feel their way eastward through the thick woods towards 
those rugged heights south of the pike. If they could be gained 
the whole position of Pope's army would not only be turned and 
enfiladed, but his line of retreat across the stone bridge might 
be commanded. His plight would then indeed be desperate. 
At the same time Hood's division moved stealthily forward 
among the trees close to the pike, and Colonel S. D. Lee ran 
his light batteries forward and planted them on a rising ground 
near Groveton, from which point he could sweep the open fields 
in front of Jackson's line, and so it happened that while Pope 



M'DOWELL ORi')ERS PORTER TO ATTACK. 14 



'^D 



was concentrating all his strength to hurl upon Lee's strongly 
posted and defended left, Lee was crouching for a spring on 
Pope's left which was not defended at all. 

Noon has come and gone, the sun is hot, the dust stifling, 
and in their grimy flannel blouses the soldiers of the Union 
army are lying along the wood-roads seeking shelter from the 
burning rays or from the occasional shells that burst among 
the branches above their heads. All the long morning the 
guns have been sullenly booming at one another across the open 
field, but the rattle of small arms has well-nigh ceased. 

And now, towards two o'clock in the afternoon, Pope decides 
that all is in readiness for the assault. McDowell, commanding 
the entire left from Reno to Reynolds, from half way to Sudley 
Church on the north of the pike to the Henry House on the 
hill just south of it, orders Porter to attack, and. with the eyes 
of the whole army upon him, that brilliant soldier leads in his two 
.ine divisions, Morell in the front line, Sykes in reserve. Sweep- 
ing out across the open fields north of the highway, in long ex- 
tended lines of battle, with banners waving and with spirited 
bearing, his troops steadily advance towards the low slopes north 
of Groveton, along which lies in ugly relief the bare, brown 
parapet of that railway embankment. Porter's men have to 
make something of a half wheel to the right to bring their front 
parallel with the general line of that improvised field-work, but 
the movement is steadily performed despite the rapid bursting 
of the shells already whistling over their devoted heads ; and 
now in splendid form they are directing their march squarely 
upon that portion of the breastwork held by Starke with Jack- 
son's own old division, and Jackson, seeing that only Porter is 
coming and that all the rest of the Union lines seem looking 
on, directs Lawton with Ewell's division to edge to his right 
and be ready to help Starke. 

And now, within rifle range, the crashing volleys mingle with 
the roar of the field-guns; the embankment is one long cloud of 
light, bluish smoke, but still the blue-clad ranks come steadily 
on. Soon they are well out in the open ground north of Grove- 
ton, and now the pace is quickened ; the men press forward 



146 MANASSAS. 

eager and enthusiastic. All promises well, when suddenly from 
down towards their left, back of Groveton, a thunderbolt seems 
to burst upon the little mound where Colonel Lee had planted 
his guns. The slope leaps with flame and soon is hidden in 
dense volumes of smoke, but twelve well-handled light guns are 
deluging Porter's left and sweeping his long lines, raking them 
with canister, and farther on, mowing them down with case-shot. 
A superb and desperate and gallant fight is made. His men 
reach the embankment and struggle hand-to-hand with the 
swarming gray-coats on the other side, but all the time those 
dreadful guns are pouring in their fire, and though King's division 
comes up, and Sigel is ordered to move forward and support them 
on their right, nothing sustains the shattered left, nor are there 
guns to oppose to Lee's brilliantly handled artillery. Why is 
this? 

Just about three o'clock, when Porter was most heavily en- 
gaged and fighting with all his energy, McDowell's practised 
eye had caught sight of heavy clouds of dust sweeping sky- 
wards over the tree-tops south of the turnpike. Nearer and 
nearer they came, and it needed but brief reflection to teach him 
what it meant — Longstreet was reaching forward to seize those 
heights that commanded the Northern lines — two hill-tops a 
little south of the turnpike and separated from each other by a 
brook known as Chinn's branch. The easternmost of the two, 
broad and well-wooded and crowned by the Henry House, had 
been the centre of battle the year before. The westernmost, 
oblong in shape, shorn of its timber, rocky, rugged, and known 
as Bald Hill, was destined to be the centre of battle this scorch- 
ing August afternoon. Seeing Longstreet's rush to gain it, Mc- 
Dowell had ordered Reynolds there with all the troops he had ; 
and Warren with a little brigade — perhaps a thousand men — was 
left to support Porter's left flank. No one else could be sent to 
help him from that side, and at last, well-nigh exhausted, having 
struggled valiantly for more than two hours, Porter's men came 
slowly falling back across the fields, just as Longstreet's divisions 
leaped from their cover south of the pike and swarmed forward 
on Bald Hill. 



A DESPERATE CRISIS. jMm 

It is nearly five p. m., and now, confident of success, Lee 
orders a simultaneous assault. Yelling like demons, all along 
the two miles of embankment, up the dusty highway, out from 
the cover of the thick woods to the south, the red battle-flags 
waving over their heads, the exultant soldiery in the tattered 
gray uniforms spring to the charge — and at this moment Pope 
has not 45,000 men to meet them. Straggling and casualties 
have reduced his force more than one-half 

It is a desperate crisis. South of the turnpike, bursting 
through the woods come the fierce Texans of Hood's division, 
closely followed by Kemper, Anderson and Wilcox, while D. R. 
Jones' strong division stretches far out on their right, and laps 
around" the threatened height from the south. The immediate 
need of covering Porter's retiring lines and checking the pursuit, 
had for the time called Reynolds farther to the right front, and 
for a few moments Bald Hill, the key-point of the line, had been 
defenceless. Luckily there happened to be just north of the 
pike, along the Sudley Springs road, one of Sigel's brigades at 
the moment disengaged. It was composed entirely of Ohio 
men — four fine regiments, the Twenty-fifth, P'ifty-fifth, Seventy- 
third and Seventy-fifth, led by Colonel N. C. McLean; and with 
all speed McLean's brigade was marched by the left flank to 
Bald Hill. In ten minutes it became the target for Longstreet's 
whole corps. 

The scene at half-past five p. m. is something grand yet terri- 
ble. For three successive evenings now, the little hamlet of 
Groveton has been the centre of a mortal struggle, but this is 
the most appalling yet. Off to the right, north of the pike, the 
thinned and bleeding lines of King and Porter are falling sullenly 
back to the Sudley Springs road. After them, firing, yelling, 
triumphant come the long lines of Jackson's corps, sweeping 
across the fields already thickly strewn with the dead and dying. 
To the right rear of Bald Hill the little command of Warren, 
those red-legged Zouaves of the Fifth New York and the Ger- 
mans of Bendix, are moving back, ordered to retire and reform 
at Henry House hill. Thither too are moving the solid regu- 
lars of Sykes' division, and Reynolds' remnant of Pennsylvanians 



148 MANASSAS. 

And Bald Hill, isolated, swept by artillery and musketry fire, 
surrounded now on northwest, west and south, is manned only 
by that one little brigade of McLean. Small wonder thei^ 
brave commander thinks for the moment that he is abandoned 
by his friends. Tower's brigade of Rickett's division is hasten- 
ing to his support, but as yet has not reached him. McLean is 
practically alone when Hood's Texans hurl themselves with savage 
yells upon the western slopes, and Jones' Georgians burst in 
upon his left and rear. But stout hearts are beating on that 
barren crest, and Ohio's one brigade, the only distinctively 
Ohio brigade in the army, stands firm against the shock of ten 
times its weight in foes and gives them gallant battle. Their 
orders are to hold Bald Hill, and hold it they do until Tower, 
moving up on the left, and Schenck, dashing in with Koltes 
brigade on the right, bring partial relief Though " reduced to 
a skeleton," McLean's brigade has superbly held its post against 
all comers. Even Hood's dare-devil Texans have twice been 
hurled back from its steady front, and Jones' brigades have suf- 
fered severe loss. 

But now, heavily reinforced by Anderson and Wilcox on the 
west, and with the Georgian lines lapping still farther around to 
the south, threatening to envelop them entirely, a new and even 
fiercer assault is made by Longstreet on Bald Hill and its de- 
fenders. Tower is severely wounded and his brigade reels; 
Koltes, fighting on McLean's right, is killed ; Schenck is hit 
and disabled ; Fletcher Webster, colonel of the Twelfth Massa- 
chusetts, and son of the great orator and statesman, is killed ; 
and on the other side Hood has lost one-fourth his officers 
and men in killed and wounded, while in Jones' brigades hardly 
a field-officer is left to lead the gallant regiments that have so 
desperately striven to carry the height. Terrible as had been 
the slaughter m front of Jackson's earthen parapet, the hardest 
fighting, the most invincible valor of that hard-fought field, was 
shown towards sunset around the blazing slopes of Bald Hill. 

But by this time, pressed from every point, Pope's lines were 
falling steadily back towards Bull Run, Henry House hill being 
ftow strongly held by the regular division and the divisions of 



THE FEDERAL ARMY FALLS BACK. I49 

Reynolds and such scattered troops as drifted in from the front. 
The batteries were drawn back and planted where they could 
sweep the approaches, and here Pope determined to make the 
final stand with his rear guard and cover the retirement of his 
army across the Stone Bridge. 

Bald Hill, outflanked and no longer of use — no longer tenable 
— was ordered abandoned. The shattered remnants of the 
heroic regiments that had held it against such odds were slowly 
withdrawn ; Schenck's men fell back by the pike ; Tower's brig- 
ades down the valley of Chinn's branch, and from the crest 
itself, strewn with their dead and dying, McLean's little band 
of Ohio men turned reluctantly away, their brave leader abso- 
lutely shedding tears at having to abandon the position he 
had held with such indomitable resolution and at such frightful 
cost. 

And now Longstreet hurls his whole force on the wooded 
crest beyond. There stands the height where Bee and Bartow 
laid down their lives the year before. There is the field where 
Jackson's men were likened to the stone wall they lined — the old 
battle-ground of First Bull Run. Win that, voiv, and the orderly 
retreat of the Northerners will be turned as it was that July 
Sunday afternoon into disorderly rout. Straining every nerve, 
hoarse with continuous yelling (and never, say those who heard 
it, " Never did the rebs yell as they did at Second Bull Run "), 
the divisions of Hood, Anderson and Kemper press forward 
to the charge. Jones is still crawling around the left flank and 
attacking from the south, but here again they encounter cool, 
dauntless, devoted men. The Northern batteries are magnifi- 
cently served ; the regulars, despite their small numbers and 
heavy losses, fight with a calm, disciplined, matter-of-fact sort of 
valor that checks the rush and ardor of the sons of Texas and 
Virginia. One long hour of crashing volleys, of thundering 
cannon, of mad, vengeful yelling that little by little died away, 
and as darkness fell upon the scene, the three days' struggle 
around the " plains " of Manassas was at an end, and, again 
beaten, but this time in perfect order, in calm, disciplined, 
coherent organization, the army of the North fell back beyond 
Bull Run, and bivouacked upon the heights of Centreville. 



150 Manassas. 

Beaten again but by no means demoralized, Pope prepared 
to resume the fight. He was now in splendid position ; and 
small as was his command, compared with the numbers on the 
muster rolls of the combined armies of Virginia and the Potomac, 
he had plenty of men to beat off Lee should he attempt to fol- 
low. Rations were obtained at Centreville, and all day on the 
35 si the army waited expecting assault. The corps of Sumner 
and Franklin were at last up from Alexandria, and it behooved 
Lee to be very cautious in his movements. But the moral effect 
of having pushed Pope way back from the Rapidan to the near 
vicinity of Washington was immense, and the greatest consterna- 
tion and alarm had spread throughout the North. Pope's re- 
assuring despatches to the capital failed in their effect. Mc- 
Clellan was at Alexandria sneering at everything that Pope had 
done and left undone, virtually saying that had he been there it 
could not have happened. It rained dismally all the day of the 
31st, and the dismal weather added to the general gloom. Peo- 
ple had lost faith in Pope, and withheld support and confidence 
at the very moment when he most needed it. 

On the other hand, Lee, the Southern army and the jubilant 
South were wild with triumph. Despite his heavy losses in bat- 
tle the Southern leader determined to finish the magnificent work 
of demolishing the army of Pope, not by direct attack on those 
heavily fortified heights, but by the daring old plan which Jack- 
son knew so well how to execute, that of striking around the 
flank and rear. Once again, early on the morning of September 
1st, Jackson's corps, which had crossed Bull Run at Sudley ford, 
reached the Little River turnpike, then turned southeastward 
and marched down through Chantilly and past Ox Hill. His 
plan was to reach the great highway between Centreville, Fair- 
fax and Washington, and " cut off the retreat " of Pope's com- 
mand. With perhaps 23,000 men he meant to try and bar the 
passage of something like 70,000. It was just as wild and dar- 
ing a scheme as the flank march through Thoroughfare Gap ; 
but that had succeeded. Longstreet was to follow him only a 
few hours behind, so he had no fears for the result of this. 

Late in the afternoon he found himself confronted by Hooker 



GENERALS KEARNEY AND STEVENS KILLED, 151 

on the Little River pike. He could not get to Fairfax that way. 
so he turned down to his right through a cross-road until Hill's 
division was almost filing on the Warrenton pike, and there he 
found himself suddenly attacked by Reno and Kearney, his 
antagonists of two days before. Then came a savage fight in a 
pouring rain, and then, luckily for Jackson, darkness ; for but for 
that he would have been utterly hemmed in by overpowering 
numbers, and probably ruined before Longstreet could reach 
him ; but here again the fortune of war was on his side. His 
men had the best of the fight while it lasted, and that night all 
Washington knew that Jackson was in sight of the fortifications, 
that there had been another fierce engagement, and that two 
superb soldiers and generals, " Phil " Kearney and Isaac I. 
Stevens, were killed in the midst of disaster. It ended Pope's 
career. The army was ordered to hasten back to the fortifications, 
and, not knowing what else to do in the bitter emergency, the 
government once more placed McClellan at the head of affairs 
in the field. The campaign of Second Bull Run in Manassas 
was at an end. 

As to results: the Northern army had lost from Cedar moun- 
tain to the Potomac more than one-fourth its number in killed, 
wounded and prisoners. Sickness and straggling had still 
further reduced it, but the stragglers as a rule reassembled under 
the colors back of Centreville. Yet such had been the disci- 
pline and determination of the men that the proportion o{ mi- 
woimded prisoners was very small, and, except in the great battle 
of the 30th, it had lost no batteries in action or on the march. 
Those captured by Stuart at the Junction were unguarded. The 
killed and wounded in the fighting of the 28th and 29th in Gen- 
eral Pope's army summed up 4,500, and on the 30th it must have 
been somewhat heavier; but in killed, wounded and prisoners it 
is not probable that his loss on those three days of fighting ex- 
ceeded 12,000 while on the afternoon of the 30th alone Long- 
street's corps lost 3,498 in killed and wounded ; and the total 
killed, wounded and prisoners of Lee's army on the plains of 
Manassas could not have been less than 8,000 men. 

From first to last brilliancy, daring and consummate good 



152 



MANASSAS. 



luck marked every move on the Southern side, while dogged 
and disciphned courage, that rose superior to misfortune and a 
host of misunderstandings, was the characteristic of the Northern 
army. An awful gloom overspread the loyal States after the 
retreat to Washington, and, but for McClellan's bloody yet fruit- 
less victory at Antietam, there is no telling what might have re- 
sulted from the renewed machinations of the " peace party." 
National fortunes seemed indeed at the lowest ebb ; but forti- 
tude, patience and courage finally prevailed. Lee's retreat south 
of the Rappahannock measurably restored public confidence, 
and the armies went into winter quarters to repair damages and 
prepare for the next move. 




tOhttraJbitiiTonts 



BATTLE-FIELU OI-' MANASSAS. 

^Position of the troops at sunset, Aug. 28, 1862.^ 




BATTLE OF CHANCELLOESVILLE. JACKSON'S ATTACK. {A. R. Wand: 




CHANCELLORSVILLE, 

1863 

BY JAMES H. -WILLARD. 

HE command of the Army of the Potomac was 
assumed by General Joseph Hooker, January 
26th, 1863. Weakened by campaigning and 
disasters ; demoralized by poignant homesick- 
ness, daily desertions and political influences ; 
the army reflected the general despondency 
of the country. The impassable Virginia 
roads precluded artillery and infantry from 
active operations during the months of Feb- 
ruary and March, and the greater part of April. During this 
period of inactivity the new Commander-in-Chief employed him- 
self in a complete reorganization of the army. Absentees were 
recalled ; elements that lowered the morale of the command were 
eliminated. The cavalry were consolidated, and sent upon daring 
raids whenever the state of the roads would allow. So indefatiga- 
ble were the efforts of the patriotic leader, that by the middle 
of April he possessed an army of 1 10,000 infantry and artillery, 
400 guns and 13,000 cavalry, all in a high state of discipline, 
and pervaded with the lofty spirit of its commander. 

Nor had Lee been idle during this time. The conscription 
act had augmented his forces materially ; the arsenals had 
furnished him with new offensive material ; supplies were forthv 
coming for the subsistence of his veterans and raw levies. The 
discipline of his troops was perfect ; their enthusiasm unbounded. 
To compensate for the disparity in numbers between his force 
and that of Hooker's. Lee relied upon a chain of elaborate for- 
tifications stretching tor twenry-^nve mik s along Jiis front. Ad- 

9 155 



156 CHANCELLORSVILLB. 

ditional defences had also been erected in the rear of Fredricks- 
burg. 

Cavahy raids were not confined to the Union troopers. While 
the opposing forces were being brought to a high state of 
effectiveness, W. H. H. Lee led an unsuccessful attempt upon 
the Union troops at Gloucester Point. Tliis was in February. 
In March, Moseby, the guerilla leader won fame and promotion 
by his dash into Fairfax Court- House, the capture of its com- 
manding officer, many horses and military stores. A desperate 
cavalry battle occurred on March 17th, when Averill and 
Fitzhugh Lee met near Culpepper Court- House. This was the 
first cavalry action of the Civil War. In April, Stoneman set 
out to disperse Fitzhugh Lee's 2,000 horsemen, and to destroy 
the railroad that afforded Lee communication with Richmond. 
Heavy rains and swollen streams compelled the abandonment 
of this project. 

Chancellorsville is ten miles southwest of Fredericksburg, and 
to that point Hooker despatched Meade, Howard and Slocum 
on April 27th. After a remarkable march of thirty-seven miles 
over heavy roads and across two rivers, the column, encumbered 
with baggage and artillery, reached Chancellorsville on the 30th. 
Here they were joined by a portion of Couch's corps, who had 
crossed the Rappahannock at another point. Anderson, the 
Confederate commander, retired from the place on the morning 
of the same day. Leaving Falmouth, Hooker now marched to 
Chancellorsville, and established his headquarters there. A 
slight cavalry skirmish during the night, was the first encounter 
with the enemy. 

While these operations were in progress, Sedgwick, who com- 
manded Hooker's left, had thrown Brooks' and Wadsworth's 
divisions across the Rappahannock. These dispersed the Con- 
federate pickets and threw up breastworks, while Sickles was 
successfully leading his corps to Chancellorsville by another 
route. This movement of Sickles' was unknown to Lee, who 
was watching Sedgwick, and manoeuvering to keep him from 
joining the main army. Early liad been left by Lee, to defend 
f "redencksburg , Jackson was sent toward Chancellorsville. 



JACKSON S BOLD MOVE. ^57 

Meeting Anderson near the Tabernacle church the combined 
forces advanced toward Hooker, who had sent Griffin and 
Humphreys in the direction of Banks' Ford ; Sykes and Han- 
cock along the turnpike, toward the Tabernacle church ; Slocum 
and Howard along the plank road that led to the same point. 
Sykes' cavalry were driven back after a brilliant skirmish, but, 
bringing up his artillery, the Union General forced McLaws — 
who commanded the second division of Jackson's column, from 
his position, and gained a ridge which commanded Chancellors- 
ville, and virtually put the Union forces in command of Banks' 
Ford which was coveted by Lee. 

A deadly grapple between Jackson and Slocum — much to the 
advantage of the Confederates, admonished Hooker that his 
columns were in peril, and it only needed the intelligence that 
Sykes was being flanked, to induce him to withdraw his forces 
to Chancellorsville ; the Confederates close upon his heels. 
Two councils of war were held that night. At Hooker's a de- 
fensive policy was decided upon. Under the pines, near the 
plank road, Lee agreed to the bold plan of his chief counsellor 
Jackson, — a flank movement upon Hooker's rear. 

Masked by the thick woods, the 25,000 men who that 
day followed the fortunes of the gallant Jackson, stole 
away, to fulfill their consign. The crossing of Lewis Creek 
discovered them to Birney, who was at once sent by Sickles — 
under Hooker's direction, to solve the mystery of the Con- 
federate movement. With Whipple and Barlow's brigades, 
Birney engaged the enemy and forced him from the highway, 
yet, by wood paths and by cutting a new road, Jackson's 
column pressed on, losing, however, the Twenty-third Georgia 
during a Union charge. Anderson's infantry and Brown's ar- 
tillery were two strong for Birney's further advance, but he held 
the road over which Jackson had passed. In reply to Sickles' 
call for reinforcements, Pleasanton's cavalry and two brigades 
from Howard and Slocum were sent to assist in the pursuit of 
the Confederates, who were supposed to be in retreat. But the 
wily Jackson was under cover of the dense scrub known as the 
Wilderness, crouching for a spring upon Hooker's right. 



158 CHANCELLOBSVILLB. 

Unaware of impending disaster, Howard's corps was pre- 
paring supper and arranging for the night. Suddenly, with a 
yell that rose above the bugle calls and outpost fire, the flower 
of Lee's army fell upon Devens, at the extreme of the Union 
line. Amid the pandemonium of sound, the surprised Union- 
ists fled in panic before the irresistible onrush of the Southrons. 
In a turbulent tide they streamed to the rear and along the road 
to Chancellorsville ; their commander severely wounded ; one- 
third of their number captured or disabled. The contagion of 
panic spread to Schurz's and Von Steinwehr's divisions ; the 
few regiments who stood their ground, crumbled before the assault 
of the grey-coated legions ; with half their number dead or 
dying, they joined their flying comrades. Rallying some of 
Schurz's men at Dowdall's Tavern, Von Steinwehr, with 
Buschbeck's brigade, checked the Confederate advance for a 
brief time, only to lose the position to Rodes and Colston. 
Through the summer twilight, what was once the gallant 
Eleventh, still fled along the dusty roads. 

Hooker now attempted to recover the field. Sickles ex- 
tricated himself from a critical situation, with the aid of Pleas- 
anton, who hurled the Eighth Pennsylvania at Jackson as he 
thundered after the hapless Eleventh corps. This stayed the 
Confederate advance long enough to save Sickles' guns, which 
had been left behind at Hazel Grove. But at a fearful price, 
for nearly all of the gallant regiment lay in ghastly heaps upon 
the bloody ground. Lee plied Slocum and Couch with a heavy 
artillery fire ; Hancock successfully resisted the attack upon 
his division. 

Jackson, anxious to inflict an additional blow upon Hooker, 
rode in front of his lines to reconnoitre before ordering a second 
attack. Returning with his staff and escort, the party was mis- 
taken in the gloom for Union cavalry, and fired upon. Several 
were killed and wounded. Pierced by three bullets — one in the 
right hand and two in the left arm, one of which shattered the 
bone, Jackson turned his frightened horse into the plank road, 
and fell into the arms of Captain Wilborn, one of his staff 
The flow of blood was stopped by General Hill, and Jackson 



Reynolds joins hookeh. i6i 

was borne on a litter to the Confederate hospital at the Wilder- 
ness Tavern. One of the bearers of the litter was killed on the 
way. Jackson's arm was amputated, and a few days later, he 
was removed to Guinea station, near Richmond. Pneumonia, 
however, was the principal cause of his death which occurred 
on May loth. 

" Stonewall " Jackson was the right arm of Lee, superior in 
moral force, personal magnetism and executive ability to his 
rommanding officer. His loss to the Confederacy was irrep- 
irable. The rugged veterans who had followed him without 
flinching, over many hotly-contested fields, wept like children 
when the death of their beloved commander was announced. 

No forward movement was attempted by the Confederates 
during the night of May 2d. The Union lines recovered some 
lost ground ; Reynolds, with 20,000 men joined Hooker 
during the evening ; Sickles took up a new line, west of 
Chancellorsville. With the shout of " Charge, and remember 
Jackson," at dawn on Sunday, May 3d, Stuart opened an attack. 
Thirty cannon played upon the Union lines as Stuart threw him- 
self upon Sickles and his support. Hazel Grove and four guns 
fell to the Confederates. With his ammunition nearly exhausted, 
Sickles sent for reinforcements, but held his position for a while, 
with the bayonet. But the Union forces for an hour were vir- 
tually without a head. Hooker was lying wounded and sense- 
less, and Couch, upon whom the command had devolved, had 
withdrawn headquarters from the Chancellor House, As the 
tide of battle ebbed and flowed around Fairview, Lee ordered a 
general advance. His army was united ; Hooker's divided. At 
ten o'clock in the forenoon, the Confederates occupied Chancel- 
lorsville. At noon, Hooker recovered sufficiently to take com- 
mand of the army which Couch had withdrawn to the northward 
of the Chancellor House — now a ghastly ruin. 

Meanwhile, Sedgwick had captured the heights of Fredericks- 
burg, and was hastening toward Chancellorsville, along the plank 
road. Lee sent McLaws to meet him, but Wilcox had essayed 
to stop the Union advance at Salem Church and a neighboring 
schoolhouse. Brooks' division drove Wilcox's troops from the 



j(j2 chancellorbville. 

schoolhouse and gained the hill. Wilcox recaptured the posi- 
tion and drove the Unionists back ; Tompkins' artillery checked 
the Confederate pursuit. On the morning of May 4th, the Union 
situation bordered on the desperate. Lee was bending his en- 
ergies to defeat a junction between Sedgwick and Hooker. On 
that day, Early, by a swift movement, cut off Fredericksburg 
from Sedgwick, and recaptured the heights. Late in the day, 
Sedgwick, resisting obstinately, was forced to give way. Re- 
tiring toward Banks' Ford he reached the north bank of the 
Rappahannock, during the night ; Gibbon crossed the river to 
Falmouth ; Lee was left with only Hooker to confront him. 
With Sedgwick unable to cooperate with him, Hooker now de- 
cided upon the retreat of the main army. Crossing the swollen 
Rappahannock during the night of the fifth, the Army of the 
Potomac took up its old quarters opposite Fredericksburg. 

Hooker's loss, including 5,000 prisoners, was something over 
17,000 men, thirteen guns, several thousand small arms, a large 
quantity of ammunition and seventeen colors. The reports of 
Lee's subordinates placed the Confederate loss at upward of 12,- 
000 men and 2,ooo prisoners. Both commanders issued con- 
gratulatory addresses to their armies, but the struggle of several 
days around Chancellorsville, brought defeat and disaster to the 
Union forces. 




BATTLEFIELD OP CHANCELLORSVILLS. ' 



163 



GETTYSBURG. 




1863. 

REAT as had been the elation throughout the 
Southern States after the victory of their arms 
at Manassas in '62, it was as nothing com- 
pared with the whirlwind of delight in May 
and June, '63. Talking to Americans it is 
needless to go into details. The intervening 
events may be briefly told as regards the war 
in Virginia. 

Emboldened by success, General Lee de- 
cided to carry the war into Maryland, hoping to win that entire 
State to the Southern cause ; and, though met and defeated at 
Antietam, it was a fruitless victory for the North. Lee got 
safely back across the Potomac, and in the following winter 
crushed General Burnside at Fredericksburg (December 13th, 
'62), and in the following spring emphatically paralyzed General 
Hooker at Chancellorsville (April 29th to May 4th, '63). All 
these engagements had been fraught with bitter loss and humilia- 
tion to the Union cause, and the Northern people were in deep 
distress of mind. Despite the acknowledged steadfastness and 
bravery of the Army of the Potomac, it seemed as though noth- 
ing could prevail against the skill and daring of the Southern 
leaders. With them there appeared to be such perfect concord 
of action. They " backed one another up " on every occasion, 
as in the old days we have seen Marlborough and Prince Eugene 
pulling together and never losing a fight ; while on the North- 
ern side it reminded one of the homely old saying, " Too many 
cooks spoil the broth." This brings to mind a second proverb 
which ought to have been of use to the Union : " In multipii^it 

16^ 



l65 GETTYSBURG. 

of councils there is wisdoip," and this recalls a third, which, 
wrung from the lips of an exasperated general-in-chief after 
Gettysburg, fairly demolished the second : " Councils (of war) 
never fight." 

It is thrilling to look back on the situation in Virginia up to 
Chancellorsville and mark how Lee, with his great lieutenants. 
Jackson, Longstreet, Stuart, Ewell and A. P. Hill, with far in- 
ferior forces, thwarted the manoeuvres of the Northern arms. 
It is painful to us Northerners to take this retrospect and see 
how we " experimented " with chief after chief TJiey, the South- 
erners, picked out their leaders after the first few months, and 
stood by them from first to last. We only set a man up to 
knock him down. The Army of the Potomac was always in a 
state of ferment, not to say divided loyalty, as regarded its 
leaders. No commander it ever had commanded its undivided 
allegiance, unless it was that, tired and sick of dissension, it 
concluded to make its best effort under the gallant gentleman 
who led it to victory, at last, at Gettysburg, and who thenceforth 
was its chief until the final disbandment. 

And yet, despite all this, it was ready to march and fight and 
get whipped time and again with a " never-say-die " determina- 
tion that entitles it to the lasting love and respect of the nation 
it finally saved from ruin, or at least took the lion's share of the 
hard knocks in doing it ; for nowhere else were such foemen 
gathered in such force as breasted its blows and so scientifically 
returned them. 

But things were black enough after Chancellorsville. Hooker, 
not his army, was demoralized. Lee knew it, and now with his 
army in glorious discipline and " trim," the Southern leader 
determined to take advantage of Northern indetermination, 
march squarely into Pennsylvania, and conquer a peace at the 
gates of the wealthy and populous cities of the North. 

Of course now, as heretofore, the Army of the Potomac was 
" lugging its drag-chain," that never-to-be-neglected duty of 
defending the capital city. Let the South once get hold of 
Washington, and England and France, both of them only 
too ready and eager, would " recognize " the independence of 



LEE INVADES THE NORTH. 10/ 

the South and forbid further proceedings on the part of the 
North. Then we would have been spHt in twain. Other divi- 
sions would soon have come, and the Great Republic would 
have gone to pieces. In his sleepless anxiety, that patient, 
God-given figure-head of the nation, Abraham Lincoln, had 
summoned to his side, and made general-in-chief of all the armies, 
the late General Henry W. Halleck, a man learned as a lawyer 
and as a soldier, a man who would have made a surprisingly good 
campaign in the open country of Europe; but he too was 
weighted with that incubus, the defence of Washington, and had 
the faculty of worrying the generals in the field; and the arrange- 
ment did not work smoothly. 

As though in utter contempt for his adversary. General Lee 
sent away corps after corps, leaving at last only General Hill 
with his corps to hold the lines of Fredericksburg against 
Hooker, who still hung to his camps around Falmouth. The 
Southern army was strung out over the country in long column 
of march towards Culpeper Court-House. 

Now was the time to crush it — but it was not crushed. Their 
move began on the 3d of June. By the 8th, Lee and the lead- 
ing troops were at Culpeper; still the Fredericksburg heights 
were heavily occupied, and not until the 9th did Hooker do 
anything but puzzle over the situation. 

That day he pushed out his cavalry to see what was going on, 
and they found out. Buford and Gregg, two sterling leaders of 
horse, took their divisions across the Rappahannock way up on 
Hooker's right, and dashed into a large force of Stuart's cavalry. 
Then followed the only real cavalry combat of the war, the 
combined fight of Beverly Ford and Brandy Station. It lasted 
until night, and, if official reports are to be believed, both sides 
got the best of it. At all events it was a spirited and dashing 
affair, and for the first time the Southerners began to feel some 
respect for Northern horsemen. All the cavalry in the two 
armies took part in it, charging and counter-charging, sabre in 
hand. A loss of half a thousand was sustained on each side, 
and after that, as a rule, except in skirmishes, the cavalry dis- 
mounted to fight. 



1 68 GETTYSBURG. 

On June 1 3th it began to dawn upon the Union generally that 
something was coming northward, for on that evening Ewell's 
corps had suddenly appeared in the Shenandoah, and all Hook- 
er's army had found out that Lee was a week ahead on a race 
for the Potomac. This was ghastly. Washington was panic- 
stricken. Hooker sent his right wing off in pursuit, but wanted 
to stop and demolish Hill with the rest of his army, but Wash- 
ington would not listen to it. It would have been a splendid 
thing, but the President, Cabinet and General Halleck said no. 
" Head him off. Get between him and us. Do this. Don't do 
it." Such, in unprofessional language, was about the nature of 
the orders that came pouring in on General Hooker, who, now 
that he was awake, was fully alive to the situation. Before he 
got to the Potomac he had lost all patience. Worse than that, 
the entire Southern army was already across and sweeping up the 
Cumberland valley, while Ewell, far ahead of everybody, was 
well up towards Harrisburg. 

Crossing his own army at Edward's Ferry on the 25th of 
June, Hooker, " swearing mad " by this time, hurried to Frederick, 
and there, considering himself hampered in every way by the 
contradictory orders from Washington, and certainly forbidden 
to do the very things he considered essential to success, on June 
27th the general begged to be, and was, relieved from the com- 
mand. 

He had been a splendid division commander — had not been a 
loyal and subordinate corps commander when serving under 
Burnside, yet, "in spite of these things, not because of them," as 
Mr. Lincoln wrote him, he had stepped into the chief command 
of the Army of the Potomac and had vastly improved it, espe- 
cially its cavalry; but Chancellorsville broke his popularity and 
really undermined him. He did gallant service subsequently in 
the West, but the Army of the Potomac saw him no more. 

Now for the next man. On the 28th of June, the army was 
somewhat surprised to hear that its destinies were to be confided 
to Major-General George G. Meade, the then leader of the gal- 
lant Fifth corps, and no one was more surprised than hiraselC 
He was not the senior corps commander. Less than a year 



MEADE AT THE HEAD OF THE ARMY. 171 

before we saw him at the head of a tiny brigade in the Httle divi- 
sion of Pennsylvanians under John F. Reynolds, and Reynolds 
was on the spot with an unimpeachable record and the reputa- 
tion of being a soldier of unusual brilliancy. Meade had never 
sought the position. He was a modest, faithful soldier, a man 
who cared nothing for popularity, but cojnmandcd respect ; a 
man who lived and died a gentleman, and who, stepping into 
the chieftaincy of this great army at the crisis of its history, was 
destined to lead it to its greatest victory, and never thenceforth 
to be other than chief on its rolls. 

And now we have both our armies north of the Potomac. 
The whole country, north and south, is waiting the result in 
breathless anxiety, and, as the greatest battle ever known on 
the continent is about to be fought, let us look well at the com- 
batants. 

On the Southern side is their noble and invincible Lee, the 
beau ideal of the soldier and the gentleman, the idol of the 
South, the now honored of the reunited nation. With him he 
brings three superbly disciplined and devoted corps of infantry, 
and those reckless, hard-riding troopers of the cavalier Stuart. 
Just now they are widely scattered over the broad lands of 
Maryland and Pennsylvania — everything getting out of their" 
way with justifiable speed. Farthest north of all, scaring the 
militia into burning the beautiful bridge across the Susquehanna, 
and now somewhere about Carlisle, is the most renowned march- 
ing corps in either army, that of old Stonewall Jackson ; but he 
himself lies far away in his honored grave, and Lee's right-hand 
man is no more. In his place rides his division commander, 
Ewell, who, less than a year ago, we saw lose his leg in front of 
the stubborn line of the Iron Brigade. Tutored as he was, no 
fear that Ewell will fail his great commander. Daring soldiers 
head his divisions in Early and Johnson and Rodes. 

The next corps is led by A. P. Hill, a most accomplished and 
gallant officer of the old army, and Heth, Anderson and Pender 
are his division commanders ; while the third corps, numeri- 
cally the First, perhaps the finest of all, is that of the old war- 
dog, Longstreet, who has three superb divisions, famous 



172 CxETTYSRURG. 

"stayers," and as one of tbem, " Hood's Texans " are marvels 
'r. attack. Another, Pickett's Virginians, are " die-hards," and 
prove it in this very battle. The third, McLaw's, is more mixed 
m composition — but is a good one. 

But now as Lee is marching eastward to concentrate near 
Gettysburg, and Ewell is coming southward to join him, what is 
most needed is his cavalry, " the eyes of the army ; " and, by great 
bad luck for him, Stuart with his whole force of troopers is far 
over to the southeast on the opposite side of the Union army, 
which is hurrying northward with all speed in search of Lee. 

Knowing that he would have a much larger army to fight, the 
great Southern leader had promised his generals that he would 
not be the assailant, but that he would take up a strong position 
and compel the Northern armies to attack him. To effect tliis 
it was absolutely necessary that he should have his " eyes " way 
out in every direction to give timely warning of the coming of 
the foe; but the first troopers he was destined to see were 
Buford's "Yanks." The two leading divisions of Hill's corps, 
bivouacked on the broad pike from Chamber.^burg to Baltimore, 
and Pettigrew's men, thrown well out to the front, not six miles 
from the town, suddenly encountered long lines of cavalry skir- 
mishers. These are Buford's boys. This is the first meeting of 
the great combat so soon to rage in fury, and it is late on the 
afternoon of the last day of June. 

The principal leaders of the Southern army having been 
named, it remains now to look at those of the North. For years 
their names and their portraits were far more familiar than pen 
can make them now. Lee, with three large corps d'arm'ee — his 
?.rmy numbering 70,000 " present for duty," was being pursued 
by Meade with six smaller corps, and his cavalry, a total of 
100,000 men, " with the colors." Lee had 206 guns. Meade 
had 352. Lee had but recently reorganized his army, still keep- 
ing up that superb system of brigading his men by States, so 
that entire divisions, Pickett's for instance, were recruited from 
one commonwealth. With us, regiments were assigned accord- 
ing to no apparent system — Maine, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin 
perhaps being grouped in the same brigade. Lee had three 



SKETCHES OF NORTHERN LEADERS. 173 

large divisions to each corps. Meade had sometimes three, 
sometimes two, but smaller than Lee's in every case. When it 
is said, therefore, that on the 30th of June, 1863, six Northern 
corps were about to engage three from the South, the effect pro- 
duced is not justifiable. 

It was with the First, Second, Third, Fifth, Eleventh and 
Twelfth corps that General Meade essayed the task of bringing 
the Southern force to bay, and his generals were as follows: first, 
and deservedly first, John F. Reynolds, First corps, a man uni- 
versally regarded as the most brilliant, and one of the most gal- 
lant soldiers in the whole army. His division commanders were 
the veteran Wadsworth, of New York, in whose division, under 
Meredith, is the Iron Brigade we saw fighting so stubbornly a 
year agone. The Second division is commanded by Robinson, 
a soldier of tried mettle ; and the Third by Doubleday of Fort 
Sumter fame, and a man who won the record of being a " stayer " 
at Antietam. 

Then comes the Second corps, and at its head is the knightly 
Hancock, a soldier the world has since learned to know and to 
honor, and his fine divisions are led by Caldwell, Gibbon (whom 
we saw fighting all Jackson's corps with that one brigade last 
year) and Hays, who, already severely wounded, is destined to 
do some hard hitting in the next two days. 

General Daniel E. Sickles commands the Third corps. Soldier- 
ing was not his profession before the war, but he takes to it with 
wonderful ease. He has but two divisions ; but they are led by 
Birney of Peninsula fame, and by Humphreys, than whom the 
army contains no more determined a fighter, and few men so 
thoroughly skilled in their profession. 

Then comes the Fifth corps, so lately commanded by General 
Meade. It is now led by General George Sykes, a cool, stead- 
fast, reliable old regular. All the regular infantry is in this 
corps in the brigade of General Ayres, lately a dashing battery 
commander. Barnes commands the First division, and Craw- 
ford, a hero of Sumter and Cedar Mountain, the Third. 

The Sixth corps stands next in numerical order, and its 
magnificent leader, brave, steadfast General John Sedgwick. 



174 GETTYSBURG. 

commands the respect and admiration of the whole army. The 
Sixth corps is especially strong in artillery, it having eight 
batteries, forty-eight guns in all, four batteries being the usual 
allowance at this period of the war. Wright, Howe and 
Wheaton are the division commanders. All " regular " soldiers 
and men of experience in many fields. 

Then comes the Eleventh corps, an ill-starred command, only 
just recovering from the shock received at the hands of Stone- 
wall Jackson at Chancellorsville. General Howard now, as at 
that time, is its commander, a man more eminent for piety and 
personal gallantry than for. success as a soldier. His divisions 
are led by Barlow (who nearly loses his life in trying to rally it 
the next day, and is left for dead behind it), Von Steinwehr, a 
Prussian well schooled in the art of war, and General Carl 
Schurz, who knows little about it, but makes up for it in courage 
and intelligence. 

The Twelfth corps is the command of Major-General Slocum, 
who is senior in rank to all the others, and who saw service at 
Antietam ; but he has but two small divisions, Williams' and 
Geary's, with many untried troops. Yet they are destined to do 
good work in the next three days. 

General Lee, as has been seen, was without the services of his 
cavalry at Gettysburg. Not so with Meade. He is blessed 
with three divisions, small in numbers, perhaps, but already 
becoming adepts in their duties. General Pleasonton heads the 
corps, and has for his assistants, first and foremost, John Buford, 
the best cavalry leader of his day ; and Gregg and Kilpatrick, 
both men of energy. But it is among the brigade commanders 
that we find the names that became most distinguished in their 
peculiar arm — Farnsworth, Merritt, Custer and Devin. 

General Meade is also fortunate in having a staff, some of 
which, notably the brilliant engineer Warren, are men of un- 
equalled efficiency. He has also admirable light artillery and a 
chief (Hunt) who knows how to use it. In fact, take it all in 
all, the Northern army is far superior in many respects to the 
Southern ; but it lacks the discipline, the unanimity and the 
supreme confidence of the latter. 



CONCENTRATING AT GETTYSBURG. I77 

Now to go back to the night of June 30th. From every 
point of the compass, troops are concentrating on Gettysburg — • 
Lee's army, oddly enough, from the north and ivcsi ; Meade's 
from the soiitJi and east. Buford's cavalry division is the only 
one actually at the spot as the sun goes down. The nearest 
supports are at Emmetsburg, or just a little north, say five miles 
from Gettysburg, where General Reynolds with the First and 
Eleventh corps has gone into bivouac for the night. The Third 
and Twelfth corps are not very much farther away towards the 
southeast. 

Two of Hill's (Southern) divisions, as has been said, are in 
bivouac, five or six miles west of Gettysburg. Ewell's whole 
corps is within easy call, eight or nine miles to the north ; but 
Buford's thin cavalry line has gone oiit toward the setting sun, 
and some two miles west of the town. There he and Petti- 
grew's footmen have halted, face to face, and the skilled cavalry- 
man knows what it means to confront an infantry brigade at 
such a time and place. There are others behind it. He knows 
well that their object is to get to Gettysburg before Meade's in- 
fantry, and it is his duty to stand them off as long as possible. 
" We'll have to fight like the very devil," he says to General 
Devin ; " but we must hold them." " They'll be down on us 
first thing in the morning." With that, night closes on the 
scene and God's truce upon the opposing armies. 

Gettysburg is a little town in southern Pennsylvania that, but 
for the battle, would never be heard of outside the State ; it lie? 
about ninety miles due west from Philadelphia. Off to the south- 
east, and "east of south " lie Baltimore and Washington, even a 
less distance away. The town lies in a shallow depression. 
Heights or ridges, low, rocky and wood-crowned, surround it on 
every side. The streams, and there are many of them, all run 
south. Willoughby Run on the west. Plum Run on the south, 
and Rock Creek on the east — all within two miles — are the prin- 
cipal water-courses. North and east the slopes are low, rolling 
and heavily wooded. West, shutting off the view and separat- 
ing it from the low valley of Willoughby Run, is a ridge running 
almost north and south. They call it " Seminary Ridge," be- 
43 



178 GETTYSBURG. 

cause of a Lutheran institution built thereon just west of the town. 
East of this ridge and south of the town is a fertile valley about 
one mile in width ; and, parallel with the ridge, bounding the 
valley on the east, is another ridge, bolder, steeper, rockier and 
far more open. This is the famed Cemetery Ridge. It runs 
square to the north until within a mile of the town, where it 
sweeps in a bold curve around to the east and turns south again 
at Rock Creek. Its top is a plateau a mile wide. At its north- 
eastern front is a heavily wooded mound — Gulp's Hill. Its 
southern extremity, nearly four miles from Gettysburg, is marked 
by a huge, jagged, boulder-strewn " butte," it would be called 
out west. This is Round Top, and nestling under its shoulder to 
the north is its counterpart, half-size — Little Round Top. Be- 
tween them and to the west of Little Round Top, lies a rocky 
gorge — mark it well. That is Devil's Den. Plum Run curdles 
at their feet. Then out in the valley lies a wheat-field nearly op- 
posite Little Round Top, and out farther still, reaching to the 
pike, a peach orchard. 

Crossing the valley from the southwest to northeast in long 
diagonal is the broad road to Emmetsburg. It runs along a 
low ridge of its own, and, just skirting the northern base of 
Cemetery Ridge, enters Gettysburg from the south. And this, 
in brief, is a crude description of the ground over which our 
greatest battle is to be fought. 

But first we have a prelude, and a sad one, for the Union 
cause. 

At first break of day on the ist of July, as though by one 
simultaneous impulse, the scattered soldiery spring to arms. 
Those who are happy enough to possess the luxury, gulp down 
their steaming cans of coffee and take a bracing souse in the 
nearest stream. Many a Southern boy, however, sets forth on 
his trudge without the gladdening beverage, but all the same he 
swings along, cheerily and hopefully. What would he not do ? 
Where would he not go for " Bob Lee? " It has been raining off 
and on, through June, but July breaks in with a burst of sunshine. 
The woods are green, the streams are bank-full, the roads are 
clear of choking dust. What more could soldier ask with such 



THE RATTLE BEGINS. igj 

a glorious prospect before him ? Meade and Lee are destined to 
meet right here in this peaceful valley, still dim and misty after the 
dews of night, and neither Meade nor Lee knows it. The former 
half expects to form his battle-line and fight along Pipe creek, 
farther to the east. The latter longs for Stuart and hopes to 
hear of him at Gettysburg. It is his worst error so far — this 
sending Stuart off on a distant raid — and the chief already re- 
grets it. But it is too late now. Stuart is sweeping up towards 
Carlisle. 

Morning reveals the pickets of Pettigrew and Buford grimly 
regarding one another along the Chambersburg pike. Right and 
left through the thin woods, lines of sentinels keep watch and ward. 
Buford's lines are in a sweeping semicircle west and northwest a 
mile out from town, and well over Seminary Ridge ; his advance 
and pickets still farther out. At six in the morning gray-clad 
infantry come marching eastward along the pike. It is Heth's 
division moving up to support Pettigrew. Warned of the pres- 
ence of " Yanks," it halts and deploys into line of battle some 
distance west of Willoughby Run. Not until nine o'clock is the 
first gun fired. Then the opposing batteries of Northern horse 
and Southern light-artillery let drive at one another along 
the pike. Gettysburg has begun. Heth's lines sweep forward 
through the woods on the dismounted troopers of Devin and 
Gamble, Buford's brigade commanders; and for one mortal 
hour the plucky cavalrymen stand their ground, alone and un- 
supported. Buford hangs on in stern determination, but still 
hopefully: Reynolds is coming; and just at ten o'clock that 
superb soldier rides out on the field in full view of the Southern 
lines, and with him comes gray-haired old Wadsworth, leading 
his division, which, though composed of only two small brigades, 
is one of the best in the army. Quickly it deploys; Cutler, a 
veteran "Badger" from Wisconsin, throwing his line facing west 
across the deep cut of an unfinished railway ; Meredith, of 
Indiana, forming on his left with the celebrated Iron Brigade. 
Eager hearts are beating in every breast. General Doubleday, 
too impatient to wait for his own division, has galloped forward, 
and Reynolds has placed him in charge of the left of the field. 



l82 GETTYSBURG. 

Out to the front is a little cluster of trees extending up and down 
the run. Who shall have it? Archer of Heth's division, or 
Meredith with his Western boys ? " Forward and seize it," are 
Doubleday's orders, and away they go. Heth has four brigades 
to Wadsworth's two. The troopers are now farther to the north, 
between the Chambersburg pike and the road to Mummasburg, 
Their ammunition is well-nigh spent, and they must soon fall back. 
A new danger menaces those wearied cavalrymen. Long lines of 
gray-clad infantry emerge from the woods far to the north, and 
move steadily forward towards the right flank of the Union line. 
By all that is desperate, Ewell has got back in time ! Those are 
the men of Rodes' division — too far away as yet to more than 
threaten ; but Reynolds sends urgent orders to Howard to hasten 
forward with the Eleventh corps and face them. Then, leaving 
to Wads worth the care of the right, he gallops over just in time 
to see the Iron Brigade's rush upon Archer, who, with his brigade, 
has ventured across Willoughby Run to attack Cutler. The 
clump of woods is for the moment forgotten. The Second Wis- 
consin, led by its gallant colonel, Fairchild, heads the dash upon 
the enemy's flank, and General Archer and several hundred of 
his men are captured in the twinkling of an eye. Meantime the 
brigade of General Davis, nearly all Mississippians, has driven 
back Cutler's right, and many of them have got into that con- 
venient railway cut. The chance is too good to be lost. Before 
the Mississippians can straighten out, Cutler's three remaining 
regiments change front to the right, run to the edge of the cut, 
and have Davis and his men at their mercy. There is abso- 
lutely no way out of it but surrender, and surrender the Missis- 
sippians do — two full regiments with their battle-flags. So far 
so good. Wadsworth's division has covered itself with glory. 
Where is Reynolds now? Why is he not there to join in the 
ringing cheers and to heartily congratulate his gallant men ? 
Alas ! for Northern hearts this day. Yonder he lies — stone-dead 
— with a bullet through his brain. 

There is no time for repining. Doubleday takes com- 
mand, sends Cutler farther to the right, and himself places in 
position the divisions of Rowley and Robinson just marching 



DEATH OF THE GALLANT REYNOLDS. jg^ 

on the field. They come in the highest spirits, eager and 
enthusiastic. " Boys, we've come to stay," sings out Colonel 
Roy Stone, who leads the brigade at head of Rowley's column. 
" We've come to stay ! " shout the men, and the stirring words 
go cheerily down the ranks. 

Robinson's division is moved off northward to confront the 
coming lines of Ewell's men. For the time being, all is triumph. 
Robinson, swinging way out to Cutler's right, is so fortunate as 
to catch three North Carolina regiments napping, and they too 
go to swell the list of prisoners. No wonder the red or white 
balled caps* are tossed high in air, and the First corps is cheer- 
ing itself hoarse. Few of them know that at quarter-past ten 
their heroic leader met his soldier's death. 

But meantime the Southerners are far from idle. Pender's divi- 
sion has come up and reinforced General Hill, who, despite his ill- 
ness, had early galloped forward and assumed command. Rodes 
has deployed his entire line, and, advancing from the north, has 
taken the gallant First corps in flank. All told it is now not 
more than six thou£.iAnd strong, and Doubleday is hard pressed. 
Six Southern batteries are thundering at him, and he has but 
three with which to respond. General Howard himself has 
arrived, and is in command of the field ; but his main anxiety 
appears to be that threatening cloud from the north, where 
Ewell's men can be ocen in the distance forming their lines and 
preparing for a swoop. 

It is half-past one o'clcck when the first division of the Elev- 
enth corps comes upon the field under General Barlow. It 
marches through Gettysburg, and is deployed north of the town 
facing Ewell. Then General Schurz's division arrives by another 
road, and is sent in between Robinson and Barlow, facing north, 
But General Howard retains Von Steinwehr and his division on the 
northern end of Cemetery Ridge, and Von Steinwehr, not liking 
the looks of things far to Ihe north, sets his men to work at once 
building stone breastworks and fence-rail defences, gets his guns 
into position and waits; se does Gener^^i Howard, 'vhc fom his 

* The ball or sphere was tue bacj^e oi *he Fi«si corj%; Kod if>r ttc F'»s* '^vv 
sion ; White for the Second. 



1^4' GETTYSBURG. 

somewhat elevated position two miles behind both his north and 
west facing lines, takes in the situation. Out on the north front, 
now, at two o'clock, Carl Schurz is in command, and he has but 
two divisions with which to hold as good as three, for yonder 
comes old Jubal Early with Ewell's second division, making 
eight strong brigades in all ; and now it is all up with Howard's 
dispositions. He has tried to cover too big a front with too 
small a force. Rodes makes a dash at the woody eminence 
opposite the junction of the First and Eleventh corps — Oak 
Hill, they call it. It is his almost without a shot. His batteries 
are promptly placed there. They enfilade a portion of the First 
corps line, and command the rest of the field. It is nearly three 
o'clock now, and the Eleventh corps is emphatically ill at ease. 
Then comes the inevitable charge and that ear-splitting, nerve- 
shaking " rebel yell." Look ! Out to the north, a mile beyond 
Gettysburg, the gray-clad lines come tearing down the slopes 
at Barlow's men. When did the Eleventh corps ever stand up 
against Stonewall Jackson, dead or alive? In vain gallant 
Barlow cheers and shouts and strives to hold them. Von 
Gilsa's men leave him for dead behind them in their disorderly 
flight. Rodes takes fire at the sight over there beyond the Car- 
lisle road. " Forward, boys ! Sweep the Dutchmen into " 

well, we won't say where ; and just as at Chancellorsville, al- 
most without a shot, like so many sheep, these demoralized 
Teutons of Schimmelpfennig, Von Amsberg, Von Gilsa and 
Kryzanowski come tearing back for town — a rabble — a mob ; 
and the gallant First corps is left " out in the air." 

It is practically the end of the first day's battle. In vain 
General Howard gallops forward and strives to rally his shattered 
corps. No use. Out to the right front, all alone by itself, at 
half-past three o'clock, one little brigade is making manful stand. 
It is Ames with the Ohio men — the very same regiments that, 
under McLean, were the last to leave Bald Hill at Manassas, 
and the last to go at Chancellorsville ; but north and northwest 
all is flight and confusion : even the right of the First corps 
has crumbled away, and at four o'clock the army of the North is 
whipped. 



HANCOCK ON THE FIELD. 1S5 

Fortunate it is that Howard has left Von Steinwehr in reserve 
on the heights south of the town. Thither the fugitives direct 
their steps — those who succeed in escaping Early, who springs 
forward and secures 5,000 prisoners in the town; and then, too, 
thank God ! Hancock has arrived. What Howard cannot do, 
he can. The magnetism of his presence, the calm force of his 
demeanor, revive the courage and command the respect of the 
iiroops. He has been sent forward by Meade to straighten 
things out and he does it. By five o'clock what is left of the 
Eleventh corps is aligned on Von Steinwehr at the northern 
end of the ridge. Later, Doubleday's men fall slowly, sulLnl)' 
back across the valley, and are placed facing west on the left of 
the Eleventh — all but one division: the now shattered remnant of 
Wadsworth's command, that has fought so heroically all day 
long, is placed by General Hancock at Gulp's Hill to the right 
of Von Steinwehr. Buford's wearied cavalry form in stern and 
forbidding front across the valley, where the open ground would 
permit of their charging anything that came along. Hill from 
the west, Ewell from the north, take a look at the new posi- 
tion, and conclude not to attack. General Lee has arrived in all 
haste and assumed command on his side. The Twelfth corps 
under General Slocum begins to file on to the plateau about six 
o'clock, and is placed in line to the left of Doubleday. With the 
loss of nearly ten thousand men to the Northern side, the first 
day's battle is over, and Hancock, his duty done, rides back to 
report to General Meade at Taneytown. 

It may be safely said that had Stonewall Jackson been ther^ 
in command of his old corps. Gulp's Hill would have been 
stormed, possibly carried, before sunset. As it is, the day closer 
with decided advantage to the Southern forces, but not all that it 
might have been. Two brigades of Heth's division are practi- 
cally used up, but he has two left. And now both commanders 
strain every nerve to bring up all their forces before the dawn of 

THE SECOND DAY. 

It is one o'clock in the morning when General Meade, after a 
moonlight ride from Taneytown, arrives at Cemetery Ridge and 



2 86 GETTYSBURG. 

• 

proceeds to make an immediate inspection of the field. He has 
ordered forward the reserve artillery, called in the outlying 
cavalry of Kilpatrick's division, and directed the prompt con- 
centration on Gettysburg of all the infantry, in preparation for 
the struggle he knows must be on his hands with the coming 
day. This concentration is a most creditable piece of business 
to all concerned except the stragglers, for, despite the fact that 
some of the corps have to march nearly all night, and that most 
of the men arrive fatigued and little in the mood for battle, they 
are there on time, and not an hour is wasted. The Third corps 
under Sickles, arrives early on the evening of the ist, except its 
rearmost division, which is in by sunrise. The Fifth corps after 
a long and rapid march reports its presence entire at nine o'clock 
on the morning of the 2d. The Second corps had been pur- 
posely halted near Taneytown " to cover the flank and commu- 
nications," but comes trudging in through the guns of the artil- 
lery long before dawn ; and the Sixth corps, young as many of 
its soldiers are, marches thirty-six miles from Manchester after 
getting its orders the evening of the ist, and is on the field in 
time for all the fighting, should it be called on. It arrives at 
two p. M. 

At dawn on the 2d of July, General Meade has decided on 
an arrangement of his troops pretty much as follows : 

Beginning on his extreme right — the northeast face of Gulp's 
Hill — he has there posted General Slocum with the Twelfth 
corps, as it is evident that Johnson's division of Ewell's corps 
means mischief there. Wadsworth, of the First corps, is moved 
a little to the left so as to connect with Ames' (yesterday Bar- 
low's) division of the Eleventh corps ; and to General Howard 
with that corps is assigned the general charge of the northern 
end of the Cemetery Ridge, which Ewell, with Early's and 
Rodes' divisions, is threatening. Robinson's division of the 
First corps is extended on the face of the ridge next to the left 
of Howard, and facing west. Doubleday, with his division, is 
in support of Howard, so that the First corps, the heroes of the 
first day's fight, and now commanded by General Newton, are 
somewhat scattered. When we speak of them as the heroes, it 



MEADE'S ARRANGEMENTS. 187 

must not be understood as ig^rioring- Biiford and his gallant 
troopers, who, perhaps, best of all deserve the honors of that 
day. 

The centre of the position, midway between the Round Tops 
and the northern end of the ridge, is occupied by the very 
men to hold it — the gallant Second corps, fresh and vigorous; 
while General Sickles, with the Third corps, holds the left of 
tlie line. The Fifth corps, early in the day, is held in reserve. 
All along the crest the men are busily occupied constructing 
rude breastworks and shelters, while the batteries are run to the 
front and crowded into every available space. There is nowhere 
near room enough for half the guns. Oddly enough, no bat- 
tery, regiments or troops of any kind are sent to occupy the 
Round Tops, unless we except the signal men with their flags. 
It is an oversight that comes near being the ruin of the Army of 
the Potomac. 

On the other side. General Lee has during the night concen- 
trated all his troops except Stuart's cavalry and Pickett's division 
of Virginians. As these two organizations are perhaps the flower 
of the Southern army, it would seem as though the gallant gen- 
eral were severely " handicapped " from the start. 

And now, with a line five miles in length, sweeping way 
around from Rock Creek in front of Slocum, through Gettys- 
burg, then down Seminary Ridge until really beyond Round 
Top, with possibly sixty thousand men, the Southern leader is 
trying to encircle an army of greater size in a stronger position. 
More than that, he proposes to attack and beat them ; and it may 
be said right here, that that is General Lee's second great error. 
It is a desperate venture and not warranted by the situation ; and 
yet his army awaits the word in serene confidence that they 
are bound to win. The fact is that in the Army of Virginia there 
is up to this time, a feeling of contempt for the Army of the 
Potomac. 

Lee's army is placed as follows : Longstreet's corps on the 
right, with Hood's division opposite the Round Tops ; McLaws' 
opposite Sickles and the Third corps ; Hill's three divisions cov- 
ering the long centre, which extends along Seminary Ridge 



1 38 GETTYSBURG. 

from McLaws to Rodes ; Rodes mainly in Gettysburg ; Early 
and Johnson from the town to Rock Creek. The Southerners 
have one point in their favor: on this long line they can use 
their batteries to better advantage, and Pendleton, their chief of 
artillery, is no bad match for Hunt. 

Lee had, as we have seen, determined to attack — Meade, to 
await attack ; but almost the entire day passed in eying each 
other before an aggressive move is made, beyond the mere 
" tentative " of Early and Johnson the first thing in the morning 
at Gulp's Hill. It is four o'clock in the afternoon before the 
Southern general decides just where to strike and how to do it ; 
but, when tho blow comes, it comes fearfully near sweeping the 
cause of the Union to perdition, and this is how it happens: 

General Meade has been of the opinion all the morning that 
the attack in ibrce would come on his right; that is, the northern 
face of Cemet(;ry Ridge and of Gulp's Hill. General Lee, after 
thorouj;fh reconnoissance of the lines, decides to assault pretty 
much aj he did with Jackson at Ghancellorsville, by enveloping 
the unp.':.5tected flank and " enfilading " the position. But he no 
longer h\s Jackson to conduct the move. In fact it is not even 
to be condi^cted by Jackson's successor, or any of old " Stone- 
wall's " meii, Lee determines to reach around the Union left, 
seize the Round Tops and attack from the south, while Hill is 
to hold thir«gs steady in the centre, and Ewell is to keep the 
troops in his front so busy as to prevent their slipping off to 
assist the corps of General Sickles, on whom the brunt of the 
attack will fall. To Longstreet is confided the arrangement of 
this assault on the Union left, and Longstreet is very long in 
getting ready. It is said of him that he disapproves the plan 
and is unwilling to undertake it ; and yet, thanks to the error of 
General Sickles, no plan could have been better. 

It so happens that just north of the " tops " and south of the 
well-defined portion of Gemetery Ridge, occupied by Hancock's 
corps, the ground flattens out, so to speak ; the ridge is lost in 
the undulations ; whereas, out in the valley proper, out beyond 
the wheat-field, and fully half of a mile from Little Round Top, 
there is a perceptible ridge along which runs the Emmetsburg 



LONGSTREET ASSAULTS LITTLE ROUND TOP. 



189 



pike. General Sickles takes the responsibility of pushing out 
there with his whole corps, placing Humphreys' division on the 
pike, Graham's brigade on its left as far as the peach orchard, 
and the rest of Birney's division " refused," as the expression is, 
and stretching back through low, scantily wooded ground 
toward the Round Tops. In this disposition of his line he 
thrusts an elbow, so to speak, squarely in the face of Long- 
street's position, showing ttvo lines, either of which can be 
" enfiladed," raked or swept by the Southern guns. The peach 
orchard is at the elbow, and not more than half a mile from the 
ranks of gray-clad infantry lying prone among the trees of 
Seminary Ridge. It is shortly after two o'clock when Sickles 
moves out and takes this position. General Meade, busied with 
his staff-officers at headquarters back of Hancock's corps, never 
hears of it, or discovers it until four o'clock, when he himself 
rides out to see what is going on towards the left. Just what 
the general's sensations are it is impossible to assert ; but it is 
too late to remedy the error. Even as he urges his horse out 
toward the point where fluttering guidons indicate the position 
of General Sickles, with one simultaneous crash and bellow 
Longstreet's batteries open on the devoted lines of Humphreys 
and Birney. Meade can only send back to the plateau in all 
haste for his old pets, the Fifth corps, and back up Sickles in 
his blunder. 

Then comes the thrilling moment of the assault. Not'xw front 
— not facing east upon Humphreys and Graham — but issuing 
from the woods to the south. Hood's whole division in long gray 
lines comes charging with its half-savage yell upon the " refused " 
brigades of De Trobriand and Ward. On they come, two solid 
brigades of Georgians, another in support ; while way off to the 
southeast, lapping far around the left of Birney's line, never 
halting to fire, never uttering a sound, strange to say ; pay- 
ing no attention to anything to the right or left, but in eager 
column, with desperate purpose, arms at right-shoulder, mounted 
officers at the trot, line officers and the sturdy rank and file at 
double-quick, a fourth brigade is dashing straight at Little Round 
Top — at Little Round Top, the key-point of the whole position 



igo GETTYSBURG. 

the spot which commands every inch of the Hnes ; the bulwark, 
that, once gained and held, will enable Lee to drive the North- 
ern army from its stronghold ; and there it stands defenceless, 
while Robertson and his darinc^ Texans, Hood's " chargers," 
and Law with his Alabama men, are nearing it at every 
jump. 

Great Heaven ! is there no one to see it ? — no one to meet 
this mortal thrust and turn it back ? The signal-men are already 
taking alarm and preparing to leave. Out to the front all is 
now uproar and excitement, for Longstreet has launched in his 
whole command ; McLaws is hammering at Humphreys and 
charging Graham at the peach orchard. Meade, all anxiety for 
his exposed Third corps, can see nothing but what is going on 
around him. The Fifth corps is pushing hastily out to the 
front. Barnes' division is hurrying forward down the slope. 
Every man seems full of eagerness to go and help Sickles. No 
■»ne further up the line towards Hancock can see what is coming 
down there beyond the rocky heights. Five minutes more and 
all would have been up with the Northern army for that day at 
least, perhaps for good and all ; all might have been lost but for 
one man, that clear-headed, sharp-eyed, brilliant engineer War- 
ren. He has caught sight of the frantic signals of the flagmen 
on the height. He it is who spurs thither in eager haste, forces 
his panting horse up among the rocks and boulders, reaches the 
crest and sees, scarce five hundred yards away, those dense 
columns of gray-clad infantry swarming at him up the glen, 
God of battles! what a sight! Quick as a flash — quick almost 
as his own thought, he wheels his horse, tears down the slope to 
the north, and dashes at the flank of the Fifth corps, rapidly 
filing by. " This way, this way, Vincent," he shouts to the 
brigade commander nearest him. " Up there with you quick as 
you can — up every man of you ! " and, leading the way, hur- 
riedly pointing out the new danger, he sends the brigade scram- 
bling up the rocks. They have not even time to load. Then he 
gallops to Hazlett's battery, and shouts to the leading regiment 
of Weed's fine brigade. It is the One Hundred and Fortieth 
New York, " Pat O'Rorke's boys." " Get those guns up, any- 



BOTH SIDES fIGHT LIKE DEMONS 



191 



how — anyhow! Carry them on your shou'iders, if you have to, 
but^r/ them up !" and with might and main the guns are lifted, 
shoved, dragged, by straining arms and panting breasts. Four 
heroic young West Pointers are urging on the work — Warr-en, 
Weed, O'Rorke and Hazlett; and just in the nick of time they 
gain the summit; quick the gunners spring in with lanyard anc/ 
canister; quick the black muzzies are trained on the surging 
masses of gray ; the flash and roar follow instanter; gun after 
gun barks its challenge, but Alabama and Texas are already at 
our gates, and in hand-to-hand conflict, panting, half-exhausted 
with their long and rapid run, they are clenched with Vincent's 
brigade. Never as yet during the war has there been such a 
sight, such a struggle. Bayonets, swords, clubbed muskets, 
rocks and stones, even fists, are brought into play. Knowing 
the importance of the position, both sides fight like demons, and 
the Texans, never before checked, keep swarming forward as 
though nothing could stop them. Even as the foremost ranks 
are grappling foot to foot, the rearmost regiments, finding it im- 
possible to get in anywhere, scale the sides of Round Top 
across the Devil's Den, and from there, open a rapid fire on their 
opponents, over the heads of their friends. Vincent has foui' 
regiments — the Sixteenth Michigan, Forty-fourth New York 
(Ellsworth avengers). Eighty-third Pennsylvania and Twentieth 
Maine. Every section of the North is represented in the defence 
of the vital point. All are hotly engaged ; fire-arms are speedily 
resumed, and some attempt is made at forming line. Ofl" to the 
right, gallant Pat O'Rorke, the Buffalo Irishman, who graduated 
head of his class at " the Point," cheers his men into position, 
shouts at them some enthusiastic words that few can hear, and 
then with flashing sword leads them in charge down the 
slope upon the Texan lines. General Weed, so loved through- 
out the army, calls up the rest of his brigade, and, after half an 
hour's desperate and bloody work, the position is safe. But at 
what a cost ! 

Vincent, the gallant brigade commander who first sprang to 
meet the Texan rush, lies prone in death. O'Rorke, charging 
at the head of his men, is instantly killed. Noble-hearted Weed, 



192 GETTYSBURG. 

mortally wounded, is breathing his last messages to Hazlett, 
when the latter, bending jover his loved friend and chief, is him- 
self shot dead; and everywhere, right and left, through the rocks 
and boulders, lie the blue-clad forms of the Northern soldiery, 
Little Round Top, the key-point, is saved; but the blood of 
heroes pours down its rocky sides. 

Meantime r.ure has been the very mischief to pay out in 
front across the valley. Directly in front of Little Round Top, 
separated from it only by the narrow rivulet of Plum Run now 
curdling red through this veritable Devil's Den, lies another 
rocky and wooded eminence. From this vantage point out 
through the open wheat-field, thence to the " peach orchard," 
and thence northward along the Emmetsburg pike, there has 
been going on one terrific and incessant struggle. All the 
lower valley is now so obscured with smoke that but little of the 
combatants can be seen, but after an hour's desperate struggle the 
eight regiments of the Third corps holding the peach orchard, the 
key-point of the position in the valley, are forced back by the 
united efforts of the divisions of Mc Laws and Anderson;, so too 
are the Fifth corps brigades of Tilton and Sweitzer; so too are 
McGilvray's light batteries that retire firing as they go. Long- 
street has burst through the very centre and threatened the 
divisions of Humphreys on the left flank and what is left of 
Birney's on the right. General Sickles himself is severely 
wounded and borne to the rear for the amputation of his leg. 
Humphreys swings back from the pike in perfect order — his two 
regular batteries, Turnbull's and Seeley's, and Randolph's Rhode 
Island guns, trotting back to the new line as unconcernedly as 
though death were anywhere but at their heels. General Graham 
is wounded and taken prisoner. Caldwell's division of Han-^ 
cock's corps comes down to help strengthen the new centre. 
Cross, Kelly, Zook and Brooke are the four brigade com- 
manders. Cross and Kelly are hurried to the support of De 
Trobriand, who is now almost exhausted and being charged by 
the fresh troops of Kershaw ; and gallant Cross, who has won 
such distinction on many a field as to be a noted man and one 
marked for speedy promotion, is shot dead while cheering on 



HANCOCK'S COUNTERCHARGE. I93 

his men. Zook meets his death-wound but a few moments 
later, and Brooke, even while driving the enemy before him, is 
shot down, severely injured. Caldwell's division is used up 
almost as quick as it comes, and Ayres' fine brigade of regulars, 
attacked in front, flank and rear at the same instant, has to 
fight its way back towards Little Round Top. Verily on the 
left Hood has carried all before him — except that height. And 
on the right, Hill has advanced ; Humphreys is driven back. 
Hancock has been sent down by Meade to take command of the 
Third corps as well as his own, the Twelfth corps is hurried 
to the spot by General Meade himself, and with these reinforce- 
ments a determined stand is at last made close under the ridge. 
The last daring charge of Hill's men is met by a vigorous 
countercharge under Hancock. Barksdale, of Mississippi, is left 
mortally wounded within the Union lines ; and, farther to the left, 
the Pennsylvanians under Crawford having made a vigorous 
sally, the wearied troops of Longstreet fall back across the 
wheat-field they had won, and darkness closes upon the scene. 

Ewell's attack on Culp's and Cemetery Hill has been suc" 
cessful in so far that he gains the intrenchments on the extreme 
right, and scares half to death the previously demoralized portion 
of the Eleventh corps on the left. But in front of Wadsworth 
and Carroll he is whipped back with heavy loss. This ends the 
fighting of the second day ; and once again, take it all in all, the 
Southern side is uppermost, for Meade's losses by sunset on the 
2d of July are equal to those of the first day — another 10,000; 
making, in all, 20,000 men, killed, wounded and missing. 

It is a black night, however, for both sides. Such heavy losses 
have a depressing effect, and the Southern troops, accustomed 
hitherto to carry everything before them at first onset, are a 
trifle stunned at the resistance they have encountered during 
the day. 

Nevertheless, with Ewell's men securely lodged in the Union 
intrenchments way around by Rock Creek, and with Sickles' 
corps whipped back to the ridge, General Lee is hopeful that 
on the morrow he can complete the work, and crush his 
enemy. 



194 GETTYSBURG. 

With General Meade there seems to have been deep anxiety. 
At one time during the afternoon things look so threatening 
that he has sent General Pleasanton to gather up the reserve 
artillery, the cavalry, etc., and look after the lines of retreat. 
There is a prospect of the enemy's sweeping round the Union 
left, and cutting off communication with Washington. That 
evening, however, he summons his principal generals in council 
and propounds three questions : 

1st. " Under existing circumstances, is it advisable for this army 
to remain in its present position, or to retire to another near its 
base of supplies? " 

2d. " It being determined to remain in the present position, 
shall the army attack, or wait the attack of the enemy? " 

3d. " If we wait attack, how long ? " 

There are present Generals Slocum, Sedgwick, Hancock, 
Howard, Newton, Sykes, Birney, A. S. Williams and Gibbon. 
In answering the questions the junior officer. Gibbon, votes 
first. One and all are of the same opinion, winding up with 
Slocum's emphatic " Stay and fight it out," and General Meade, 
as though gratified at a unanimity so much in accord with his 
own wishes, promptly announces, "That, then, gentlemen, is the 
decision." 

In the confident expectation that Lee will again attack on the 
coming day, all preparations are made to meet him. Meantime 
all, who can, lie down along the lines and sleep until the ringing 
reveille that ushers in the morning of 

THE THIRD DAY. 

The very earliest gray of morning reveals a change in the 
dispositions on both sides over on the right at Gulp's Hill, 
Johnson's men of Ewell's corps have been heavily strengthened 
during the night, and Meade has been far from idle. Several 
light batteries have been moved over opposite the intrenchments 
to which the plucky Virginians are clinging. The whole Twelfth 
corps is sent over from near the Round Tops, and the moment 
\t is light enough to see, every gun opens, and shell and case- 
^ot go whirring and banging into the thick underbrush, and 



LEE ATTACKS THE UNION CENTRE. 195 

there is not a Southern gun there to reply. For some time this 
sheUing is carried on; then the divisions of WilHams and Geary 
make a spirited assauh, and, for five mortal hours, a deadly strug- 
gle goes on along the banks of Rock Creek. Shaler's brigade 
of the Sixth corps takes part, and the Northern army is able to 
send in very heavy masses of troops against Johnson's men, 
among whom is the old Stonewall brigade. At last, between 
ten and eleven o'clock, the slopes are cleared of Southern sol- 
diers, the position is retaken, held and strengthened, and Meade 
turns his eyes westward to see what Lee will do next. 

Foiled in his hopes of strengthening Johnson and attacking 
from the north. General Lee adopts the one plan he considers 
left to him, that of making a furious assault on the Union centre, 
piercing it, and hurling the army apart. It is a tremendous 
undertaking, but he feels that it must be done, and is moderately 
hopeful. As a prelude, and in order to sweep the opposite crest 
as much as possible, General Lee causes to be stationed at 
every available point along Seminary Ridge his most powerful 
batteries, until by noon he has one hundred and forty-five guns 
in position. Most of these are half hidden in the trees at the foot 
of the ridge, but many are pushed boldly out to the Emmets- 
burg pike, behind which, lying down in the broiling sun, are 
many brigades of Southern troops " waiting for orders." Mean- 
time on Cemetery Ridge General Hunt has not been idle. Twc 
regular batteries now crown Little Round Top. Next, farther 
north, come the batteries of Major McGilvray; then those under 
command of Captain Hazzard, and finally the batteries of the First 
and Eleventh corps farther north — eighty guns in all, General 
Hunt is able to plant in front of the infantry or between the 
brigades along the crest, for he well knows that a desperate 
atttack is coming. 

Before it comes, however, a brilliant though fruitless struggle 
is destined to take place way down to the south of the Round 
Tops. There the cavalry of General Kilpatrick, with Graham's 
and Elder's horse-batteries, find themselves confronting a few 
cavalry skirmishers and some infantry regiments of Hood's 
corps. The woods are thick. They cannot tell just what is in 



196 GETTVSDURG. 

front of them, but Merritt has his regulars, and Farnsworth twc 
fine regiments of volunteer horse. They are not the men to 
stand idly by, and, seeing what they suppose to be a good 
opportunity to dash in on the rear of Hood's main line, they 
charge. Farnsworth, sabre in hand, leaps a fence in front of 
him, and, followed by his two regiments, dashes through the 
fields beyond, sabring the skirmishers whom they find there, 
and pressing impetuously onward to the very guns of the South- 
ern batteries, they find themselves well-nigh surrounded by in- 
fantry. Here gallant Farnsworth and many of his men are 
killed, others taken prisoners ; and as for Merritt's regular brig- 
ade, they speedily find the woods in their front crammed with 
riflemen, and utterly inaccessible for cavalry, despite the daring 
and vigorous attempts made to carry them. 

And now come the preparations for the grand closing attack 
— the final effort. In many of its features one is reminded of 
the last charge of Ney and the Old Guard at Waterloo. 

During the morning there has arrived in rear of the cen- 
tre of the Southern line the superb division of General Pickett, 
comprising the brigades of Kemper, Armistead and Garnett, all 
Virginians; and this devoted command is designated by General 
Lee to lead the van. In compliance with his orders, Pickett 
moves his division out in the open, midway between the Emmets- 
burg pike and the Seminary Ridge. There, with Kemper and 
Garnett in the first line, and Armistead forming the second, the 
men are to lie down and await the result of the cannonade soon 
to begin. To support Pickett in the great task before him 
General Lee draws upon Hill's corps, the only troops that have 
not yet been heavily engaged in the battle itself Wilcox's 
brigade is ordered to move on Pickett's right, and six brigades 
of the divisions of Anderson and Pender are designated to 
attack simultaneously on his left, Pettigrew commanding their 
leading line. General Pickett also understands that two or three 
light batteries are to assist upon his flanks, moving forward with 
him. The troops move in silence to their assigned positions, 
and the entire command, now numbering 15,000 men, is placed, 
for the time being, under the orders of General Longstreet ; and 



SIXSCORE CANNON OPEN FIRE. 1 99 

right here it must be said that Longstreet is ominously op- 
posed to the whole plan. He cannot bring himself to act 
heartily in carrying out the orders of his chief. He has every 
fear that the attempt will prove suicidal, and fof once in his life 
at least, Lee's staunch lieutenant must be said to have " hung 
fire." At one o'clock the report is brought to him that all is 
ready, the different brigades in their assigned positions — Pickett 
and Wilcox out towards the pike, Pettigrew and Anderson farther 
back among the trees of the ridge. The point designated by 
General Lee on which to direct the attack is a jutting knob of 
Cemetery Ridge occupied by Hancock's corps, immediately 
behind which are Meade's headquarters. At one o'clock, down 
to the right of the lines of Lee, there boom forth at one minute's 
interval two guns from the Washington artillery of New 
Orleans. It is the signal to begin, and in one terrific burst of 
thunder, the sixscore cannon open fire on Cemetery Ridge, 
and a flight of death-dealing shells whirls shrieking across the 
valley. Thus begins the most stunning, deafening cannonade 
ever heard on this continent. Fast as they can load and aim 
the Southern gunners ply their work, and the eager eyes of 
their leaders follow the effect of the fire. But on the Union 
side all is still : crouching behind their breastworks, lying flat on 
the ground, the Northern infantry seek shelter from the terrible 
storm ; the battery men lie prone around their guns impatiently 
waiting for the word, the horses are run off far to the rear; 
all eyes are on General Hunt, who, cool and imperturbable 
amid the flying fragments of the shells, stands scanning the 
positions of tlie Southern guns. Full fifteen minutes he waits, 
then comes a quick signal to Hazzard ; the bugles ring out, 
"commence firing;" up jump the cannoneers, and in one 
grand roar the whole line from Round Top to the right bursts 
into flame. The cannonade is indescribable; men are so deafened 
and stunned by it that many are semi-paralyzed, and hundreds 
can hear no word of command for days afterwards. More than 
two hundred guns are banging away all at once, and if anything, 
the Southerners are having the best of it. Flying over the crest, 
their shells plunge back on the plateau among the reserve bat- 



200 



GETTYSBURG. 



teries, the wagons, the various headquarters, and play havoc 
everywhere except on the crest itself, where the infantry is lying 
dow.t. Then, too, a light wind from the northeast blows all the 
smoke down into the valley, and completely hides it from 
the Northern gunners, who are thus compelled to fire very 
much at random, while the Southern gunners simply keep the 
range they had learned early in the cannonade. But they make 
one great mistake. Instead of concentrating their fire on Han- 
cock, where the great attack is to be made, they scatter it along 
the whole line. At last the fire slowly slackens. The word is 
passed that the Union batteries are silenced or out of ammuni- 
tion. It does not seem to occur to Colonel Alexander that the 
wily Hunt may only be suppressing his batteries in order to draw 
on the attack he is so ready and eager to meet. " Now is your 
time, Pickett," is the purport of the message that reaches that 
gallant general, and he, galloping to Longstreet, asks if he shall 
now advance; but Longstreet, torn by conflicting emotions, his 
duty to Lee and his own conviction that nothing but disaster 
can result, will not give the word that is to launch his magnifi- 
cent division to destruction; but Pickett knows the orders of the 
general-in-chief. He waits one moment: then, saluting, says, 
" Genera], I am about to lead my division to the attack," and 
Longstreet in silent agony of mind simply bows his head. It is 
the order. It must be done. 

And now, under a blazing July sun that has already stricken 
down many unwounded men, Pickett gallops to the front, and 
the ringing word of command resounds and is taken up along the 
lines. Virginia springs to her feet ; the ranks are dressed; the 
battle-flags are advanced. Forward is the word, and in disci- 
plined silence, in beautiful order, the Virginia division moves to 
the front. At the same instant the brigades of Hill to the left 
spring to arms, and move forward from the sheltering woods. 
To attain the point indicated by General Lee, Pickett has to 
move full half a mile to his left, up the valley towards Gettys- 
burg, and nothing can exceed the calm steadiness in which the 
manoeuvre is executed. Friend and foe alike burst into shouts 
of admiration. The instant the lines reach the Emmetsburg pike 



DAUNTLESS BEARING OF PICKETT'S MEN. 201 

the Northern guns reopen and hurl case-shot and canister upon 
the gray-clad ranks, but with no more effect in stopping them 
than if they were firing blank cartridges. At last they reach the 
point directly in front of Hancock, Armistead presses forward 
and aligns his brigade between those of Kemper and Garnett; 
and now, gentlemen of Virginia, forward it is in earnest. Off to 
the left, animated by the dauntless bearing of Pickett's men, the 
troops of Pettigrew and Anderson are coming gallantly forward , 
but Wilcox is unaccountably slow. He is too far back on the 
right, and Kemper is " uncovered " towards the south. The 
guns along Cemetery Ridge blaze in perfect fury ; fresh bat- 
teries are run up ; canister is fairly rained upon the matchless 
advance ; but, closing in their gaps, dressing on the centre, ever 
directing their march upon that jutting knoll of Hancock's, 
calmly, with solid tramp, tramp, even slozver than quick time, 
those glorious soldiers come on. They are within five hundred 
yards. Pettigrew on their left is urging his North Carolinians up 
on line with their leading rank. Armistead, afoot now, with his 
hat on the point of his sword, is waving on his men ; for at this 
instant Stannard's Vermont regiments, thrown forward in a little 
clump of trees south of the point of attack, open a rapid mus- 
ketry fire on the right flank of Kemper's lines, and they cannot 
help edging a little to the left. McGilvray's batteries too are 
hurling canister obliquely across the slope, and the gray uni- 
forms are dropping by scores ; but still the battle-flags wave in 
front, and the steady advance continues. The batteries before 
them have fired away nearly all their canister and never checked 
them; and now the men of Gibbon's and Hay's divisions grasp 
tighter their muskets for the coming volley. " Remember 
Fredericksburg," some men pass the word along the line. 
Nearer and nearer come the Virginians, and still not a musket- 
shot is heard on the crest. At last, as they get within three hun- 
dred yards, one simultaneous volley bursts from the rifles of the 
Second corps, one terrific, sweeping volley before which hun- 
dreds go down like tert-pins. It is more than the North Caro- 
linians can stand ; they waver, break and run, leaving many ba^t- 
tle-flags, and hundreds of prisoners in Hancock's hands. Not 



203 GETTYSBURG. 

SO Virginia. With one triumphant yell they burst from the 
serried ranks, and, still shouting like demons, the brigades of 
Kemper, Armistead and Garnett, all alone and unsupported at 
the moment, dash at the crest and come tearing up the slope in 
a vast gray surging wave. In vain the blue lines blaze with fire. 
Nothing will stop them. Three Pennsylvania regiments man 
the low wall right in front of Armistead, and such is the impetus 
of Pickett's grand up-hill rush that the Pennsylvanians are rolled 
over and driven back, and Armistead leading, leaps in among the 
guns of Cushing's battery — gallant little Gushing, mortally 
ivounded already, yet demanding the right to die among the 
guns he has fought so well ; and die he does, another bullet 
striking him just as Armistead reaches his side, and is himself 
prostrated in death beside the young commander whom he was 
about to order, surrender. With frantic yells of triumph the 
Southerners swarm through the battery and the Rhode Island 
guns on its left, while Kemper's men and Garnett's, pushing for- 
ward, hurl themselves on the second line. But watchful Han- 
cock and his energetic Gibbon have rushed up additional troops; 
brave "Andy" Webb has rallied the Pennsylvanians. Whole 
brigades and regiments come running to the scene; a perfect 
death-storm breaks on the devoted Virginians now hemmed in 
on three sides ; Garnett is killed ; Armistead dying ; Kemper is 
borne to the rear severely wounded ; the battle-flags are shot to 
earth quicker than men can pick them up, and still these heroic 
Virginians hold the ground. Then the surrounding regiments 
advance their stars and stripe:?; four-deep the blue ranks crowd 
about their hapless foes ; the wall of fire is broader and deeper, 
and at last the bleeding remnant throws itself upon the ground, 
the battle-flags are all humbled in the dust. Pickett, making 
his unhappy way back through the friendly smoke across the 
valley, finds that he has left to him, of the twenty-two officers of 
rank, and five thousand men, who went in with him as his own 
division, just one lieutenant-colonel and perhaps five hundred sol- 
diers, Ney, Cambronne and the Old Guard at Waterloo were not 
more superb ; but, as Longstreet had feared, the glorious division 
of Virginia is annihilated. On its left, Pettigrew has come up with 



HANCOCK MASTER OF THE SITUATION. 



203 



his partially rallied troops, and the brigades of Scales and Archer, 
only to meet a fate almost as bad. Fortunately for him and his, 
they do not break the first line and so get into a trap ; but they 
are desperately whipped. Hancock has taken forty-five hun- 
dred prisoners and twenty-seven battle-flags. A few broken and 
dispirited regiments drift back through the smoke, and are 
rallied by sad-hearted Lee and Longstrcet on Seminary Ridge. 
Wilcox comes up and makes an abortive assault in front of the 
batteries of McGilvray ; but those active Vermonters of Stannard 
take him too in flank and he is hurled back with loss of several 
hundred men. The battle of Gettysburg is over. 

Even in that last charge of Pickett's, his Virginians in their 
heroic fight have done much damage. Many officers and men 
are killed and wounded while battling with them for the crest. 
Among the wounded are Hancock and Gibbon, who have been 
so energetic ; but nothing can compensate the Southern army 
for the terrible losses it has sustained. It has fought with superb 
and devoted bravery. It has been unable to drive the Army of 
the Potomac from its strong position. Its best and bravest have 
gone down in the desperate attempt ; but all the same it is still 
so disciplined, so united that General Meade wiselv decides to 
let well alone and " push things " no farther that d^y. He has 
been blamed for not making a general assault, at once, on Lee's 
position on Seminary Ridge ; but the issue would have been 
very doubtful. Some years ago, General Longstree*: told the 
writer that Hood and McLaws, and the whole Southern artillery, 
were in readiness to give him the warmest kind of reception in 
case Meade made the attempt ; so that night of the 3d of July 
was spent as though a truce had been sounded. The next day 
the rain-storm that inevitably follows a great battle came up. 
General Lee moved his trains, his guns and his wounded slowly 
and deliberately back to Cumberland valley, and thence towards 
Williamsport on the Potomac. He followed with his army in a 
day, slowly and with impressive dignity; but his cavalry leaped 
forward, seized the bridges and the ground commanding them. 
Floods prevented his crossing. He fortified his position, and, 
when Meade came up in pursuit, the very generals, who had 



204 



GETTYSBURG. 



counselled fight at Gettysburg, shook their heads at the defiant 
front presented by that unconquerable Army of Virginia. It 
was then that General Halleck, eager to have the work finished, 
telegraphed that " councils of war never fight ; " and the Presi- 
dent expressed his deep regret that Lee was allowed to get away. 
But get away he did, and safely too. On the 15th of July the 
army of the South was all back again on the " sacred soil" — all 
but what was left at Gettysburg. 

Of the losses in this " battle of the giants," an exact estimate can 
be given only of the Army of the Potomac, which suffered : 2,834 
killed, 13,733 wounded, 6,643 missing — an aggregate of 23,190. 
The army of General Lee lost 14,000 prisoners, and probably 
15,000 killed and wounded at lowest estimate. 

On the 4th of July, the day after the battle, the Army of the Po- 
tomac and that of the West exchanged hearty congratulations, for 
Vicksburg fell before General Grant, and the combined victories 
served to give to all loyal hearts in the North a thrill of hope, a 
fervent glow of gratitude, such as had not been known since the 
beginning of the long and cruel war. The tide at last had 
turned, but not until Virginia had ridden on the topmost wave 
and been dashed on the rocks of Gettysburg. 




NASHVILLE. 

1864. 

HE year 1863 had been full of disaster for the 
South, or rather for the cause of its leaders. 
The trivial successes gained in Virginia were 
more than neutralized by the great blow of 
Gettysburg, while the fall of Vicksburg had re- 
manded to the control of the North the whole 
course of the Mississippi river. Then there 
were two proclamations by the President of the 
United States that had all the moral effect of 
additional victories for the national arms — the emancipation of 
the slaves, and the amnesty offered to all armed insurgents under 
certain of the highest grades. The year 1864 began with every 
prospect of a speedy ending of the war of the rebellion, but the 
South seemed as hopeful, resolute and energetic as ever. Abroad, 
her statesmen were enjoined to represent her as rapidly nearing 
her final triumph, and so material aid kept coming in from 
England and from France. At home, her government cheered 
the people by promises of speedy satisfaction for the heavy losses 
of '63, and more rigorously enforced its conscription of able- 
bodied citizens to ensure it. 

In the North all was high hope and confidence. Three great 
generals, who had risen to prominence and won resounding 
applause on western battle-fields, had been placed at the .head 
of the armies of the Union, and of these men great things weKe 
expected. First was General U. S. Grant, whose dogged reso- 
lution, persistence, and keen knowledge of soldiers and soldier- 
ing had enabled him to win battle after battle, and finally to 
gain the crowning triumphs of Vicksburg and Chattanooga, and 

205 



2o6 NASHVILLE. 

who now appeared in the east as lieutenant-general command- 
ing the armies of the United States, supplanting Halleck, who 
remained at the capital as chief of staff. Second was Major- 
General W. T. Sherman, whose tireless energy and brilliant at- 
tainments had made him Grant's right hand man and most 
trusted lieutenant. To him was now intrusted the chief command 
of the armies in the west. Third was General Philip H. Sheri- 
dan, who had won universal praise and admiration for the dash 
and vigor with which he handled an infantry division; and when 
General Grant, reaching Washington, had his first interview with 
the President, the secretary of war, and General Halleck, and 
announced to them that the Army of the Potomac must have a 
general to reorganize and command its entire cavalry, General 
Halleck asked, " How would Sheridan do ? " " The very man," 
said General Grant, and Sheridan forthwith, and very much to 
his disgust at first, was transferred from the Army of the Cum- 
berland to the Army of the Potomac. With Grant, Meade and 
Sheridan in Virginia, it was believed that the gallant army of 
General Lee would soon be penned within the walls of Rich- 
mond ; and with Sherman, Thomas, McPherson and Schofield 
in the west, it was believed that there the confederacy would be 
cut in two. 

In the Army of the Potomac there had been much discord and 
jealousy, as we have seen. In the armies of the west there was 
unanimity, and high spirit of cordiality towards the present 
commanders. Of course there had been the same experiments 
with various generals in high commands, which had been so 
marked a feature of the. first two years of the war in the east. 
Generals Don Carlos Buell, Rosecrans and Halleck had all 
commanded in the field south of Kentucky, and had failed to 
satisfy the demands of the public or the government, but the 
leaders and the men had pulled together with a will, and now, 
early in '64, it was the intention of General Grant that the 
armies east and west should act in concert, and no longer be 
" like a balky team," as he characteristically expressed it. Early 
in the spring, he and Sherman moved simultaneously — Grant 
qn Richmond, Sherman on Atlanta. General Lee successfully 




GENERAL U. S. GRANT. 



SHERMAN "MARCHING TO THE SEA." 209 

defended the approaches to his capital, and forced Grant to halt 
before the walls of Petersburg ; but nothing could stop Sherman, 
who, on the 2d of September, had taken Atlanta. 

Things looked desperate for the South, but the people were 
as brave, the leaders as daring as ever. Jefferson Davis hurried 
westward to revive the spirit and hopes of the people ; pointed 
out to them that, though Sherman had succeeded in reaching 
and seizing Atlanta, he was in a very critical position. His sole 
line of supplies was a long single-track railway that was liable 
to be cut in a thousand places. It had to be heavily guarded, 
and, running through hostile territory for 300 miles, it could 
not be relied upon. Mr. Davis urged all absent or skulking 
soldiers to return to their colors, promised that Sherman should 
be driven back in a retreat as disastrous as Napoleon's from 
Moscow, and that the armies of the South should march jubi- 
lantly to the Ohio. He had most injudiciously removed General 
Joseph E. Johnston from the command of the army in Georgia, 
and assigned in his place a daring and brilliant soldier, General 
John B. Hood ; and, giving the latter instructions to cut Sher- 
man's communications everywhere and prepare to march north- 
ward, and promising him that .strong forces should join him 
from west of the Mississippi, Mr. Davis went back to Richmond, 
leaving General Hood to carry out his orders. 

Hood was active and energetic. He aimed blow after blow 
at the railway, and sent his cavalry raiding all along the lines, 
giving General Sherman much uneasiness, but never for once 
breaking his hold on Atlanta. No, General Sherman had re- 
solved on a glorious move. All he needed was a reliable man 
to hold the States of Tennessee and Kentucky against any north- 
ward march of the Southern army in his absence, and he chose 
the right man when he named for this important trust Major- 
General George H. Thomas. 

Taking the very best of the combined armies of the Tennessee, 
the Ohio and the Cumberland, with him. General Sherman swung 
loose from Atlanta late in the fall on his never-to-be-forgotten 
march to the sea, leaving General Thomas with a very mixed 
command to defend the line of the Tennessee against the south. 



2IO NASHVILLE. 

" I will send back into Tennessee the Fourth corps," wrote 
General Sherman; "all dismounted cavalry; all sick and wounded 
and all incumbrances whatever," and on the 26th of October he 
issued formal orders placing General Thomas in command of 
the Military Division of the Mississippi during his absence, 
headquarters to be at Nashville. 

On October 31st General Stanley, with the Fourth corps, 
was ordered to concentrate at Pulaski in southern Tennessee, 
and General Schofield with his command was ordered to move 
from Resaca, Georgia, towards Columbia, Tennessee, a little 
town on the Nashville and Decatur railway, about thirty miles 
north of Pulaski, for it was now apparent that General Hood 
with a powerful army intended crossing the Tennessee and ad- 
vancing by this line upon Nashville. 

It was late in the autumn; the rivers were low; the gunboats 
could not reach the threatened crossings of the Tennessee. 
General Forrest, a born cavalry leader, with some 6,000 troopers^ 
was raiding along the railway and the river, and General Thomas 
had no horsemen to send against him. In order that his own 
cavalry might be well mounted for the march to the sea. Gen- 
eral Sherman had taken most of the serviceable horses of the 
western armies and sent back to Thomas only cavalrymen in 
name. They arrived at Nashville by brigades and regiments, 
afoot, and had to be remounted before becoming available for 
field service. 

In plain words, the task allotted to General Thomas was to 
improvise an army with which to repel a bold invasion that 
Would carry ruin and desolation with it if not checked. General 
Hood's army was strong, compact and admirably led. It con- 
sisted of three divisions of infantry under Cheatham, S. D. Lee 
and Stewart, at least 40,000 strong, and of some 10,000 cavalry 
under their renowned leader, Forrest. Hood himself we have 
seen before in command of the Texans at Manassas and Gettys- 
burg; a braver man probably never lived, and as a division com- 
mander he had no superior in the South. As a general com- 
manding an army he had been but a short time before the 
people, and having been designated to supersede a favorite officer, 



HOOD'S NAPOLEONIC IDEA. 211 

J. E. Johnston, he could not at once command the entire s^-ni- 
pathy of the army. But he was admired and respected. His 
fighting qualities none could question. Gettysburg had ruined 
an arm for him ; Chickamauga had robbed him of a leg; never- 
theless he was ready to take his part in the great campaigns of 
'64, and now was determined to lead his army to the doors of 
Louisville. He and his antagonist were well known to each 
other. They had served together as officers in the same 
regiment of cavalry in the old regular army before the war. 

Against Hood's force General Thomas had in front of Nash- 
ville some 25,000 infantry and 4,500 cavalry. These troops 
were effectives in the field. He had additional garrisons in 
Chattanooga, Decatur, Murfreesboro', Nashville and other im- 
portant towns, and in block-houses along the railways, but these 
garrisons were needed just where they were posted. The troops 
with which he could expect to confront Hood's army were the 
Fourth corps under Major-General Stanley, a famous fighter, 
and the remains of the Army of the Ohio, under Major-General 
Schofield, a very able and distinguished officer. Reinforcements 
were to be sent to Nashville from Missouri and the north, and 
horses for the cavalry, but before they came Hood had leaped 
the Tennessee and rushed forward to beat the concentrating 
troops in detail. The idea was Napoleonic. He hoped to cut 
off Schofield on his march for Columbia, but although Cheatham 
was in readiness to assault Schofield's flank as the Union column 
hurried along, he failed to attack, and was severely rebuked by 
Hood for the neglect. 

General Thomas at Nashville was now in a position to try the 
nerve of any man. He had thrust upon him, so to speak, a vast 
array of ineffectives and non-combatants. Nashville was crowded 
with men to feed, but wofully short of men to fight. His cavalry 
■was still unhorsed ; thousands of convalescents had gone home 
to vote and had remained to hear the result of the election. He 
had not a division of organized and veteran troops in his lines. 
He could only make provisional brigades of what were there, 
telegraph for the instant return of all soldiers belonging to his 
army, urge the sending of horses, and form for defence as best 



213 NASHVILLE. 

he might; meantime he sent word to Schofield to fall back fight- 
ing ; to assume command towards the front and delay Hood as 
long as possible; then with superhuman energy he devoted him- 
self to the task of preparation. He was a man of uncommon 
mould — calm, firm, full of high purpose, of the loftiest patriot- 
ism, of the most unblemished honor. He had risen to promi- 
nence at Mill Spring, where he routed Zollicoffer's army. He 
had fought superbly at Perryville and at Stone River. He had 
immortalized his name at Chickamauga, where his inflexible 
courage and firmness saved the Union army from utter ruin. 
He had won high distinction in the advance on Atlanta. He 
ivas the most perfect defensive fighter in the western army ; but 
■ — said some superiors and many inferiors — he was slow. " He 
could not fight an aggressive battle." "Old Slow Trot," the 
soldiers used to call him. " Old Safety " was a name he won 
early in the war ; " Old Pap Thomas " his men lovingly called 
him before it was over. He had stood like a rock against the 
Southern host at Chickamauga ; he was now to be subjected to 
an ordeal an hundred times more trying — that of standing like 
a rock against the ignorant demands of the press and the public, 
and against the ill-considered orders and impatient criticism of 
superiors hundreds of miles from the scene of action. 

Obedient to his orders, Schofield faced about at Franklin on 
the Harpeth river, twenty miles south of Nashville. He had 
fallen back slowly, keeping a bold face to the foe, while his great 
superior was straining every nerve strengthening the fortifica- 
tions and organizing his forces at the capital. With a much 
inferior command in point of numbers, Schofield had at Franklin 
an intrenched position, which Stanley thoroughly knew how to 
defend. Hood attacked here at 4 p. m. on November 30th and 
was repulsed with great loss. Again and again the daring 
leader ordered his men to repeat the assault. It was useless. 
It was even foolhardy. In proportion to numbers engaged, 
Franklin v/as the bloodiest battle of the war. Cleburne and 
five other Southern generals and seventeen hundred and fifty 
Confederate soldiers were killed that day, and the loss to Hood's 
army was over 6,000 combatants. A terrible blow, indeed. 



A GLANCE AT THE BATTLE-FIELD. 212 

Schofield's loss was only one-third as much, but included his 
right-bower, Stanley, among the severely wounded, and, having 
thus crippled his rash antagonist, Schofield withdrew to the lines 
of Thomas, who now felt better prepared to receive Hood when 
he should appear before Nashville. 

Let us glance at the ground on which the decisive battle is to 
take place. Nashville stands on the south or left bank of the 
Cumberland river, in the heart of a boldly undulating limestone 
country. The city itself is compact and handsome ; the capitol 
a fine building, with a commanding view towards the heights to 
the south. The city lies in a large amphitheatre, as it were, for 
it is encircled by ranges of knobs and ridges that are almost 
concentric. Southeast of the city, grazing it in fact, ihe first 
circle begins and the hills are steep and nigh. South they open 
out a little farther from town and sweep around to the Cumber- 
land again on the west. On thie range was built the inner line 
of strong redoubts and earfliworks that defended the city. Fort 
Negley, at the base of which runs the railways to Murfreesboro' 
and Franklin, was the highe.=t and most important. From here 
another line was thrown out on a second range of knobs and 
ridges that swept around like the first, to the Cumberland, a mile 
outside. This was thife outer line of works, averaging an hun- 
dred feet greater height than the first, and between this second 
or outer line and a series of bluffs spanning the southern horizon 
was a fertile valley cut up into numerous little ridges and 
"swales" of its own. Back of these bluffs, directly south of the 
city and about five miles from the capitol, are the Overton 
hills, the highest of all. 

From Nashville three railways ran out south of the Cumber- 
land — one to Chattanooga southeast by way of Murfreesboro; 
one to Decatur south by way of Franklin, and one to Johnson- 
ville on the Tennessee, nearly due west. Besides these there 
were no less than ten broad high roads or " pikes " radiating out 
in every direction, east, west and south. Three of them ran 
nearly south. Passing right under Fort Negley and the Over- 
ton hills is the Franklin pike. Next to the west of it is the 
" Granny White " pike, and west still farther is the Hillsboro 
12 



214 NA^nVII.LE. 

pike. The three leave Nashville almost at the same point, but 
gradually spread apart until, crossing the line of the Overton 
hills, there is a good long three miles between the outermost ; 
and it was mainly between the Franklin and Hillsboro roads that 
the great battle of Nashville was fought. 

On December 3d General Hood, with his whole army, smart- 
ing and raging after his severe punishment at Franklin, appeared 
before the lines of works. They were too strong for him to 
assault. He therefore threw up rifle-pits and earthworks, ex- 
tending from the Chattanooga railway on the east, circling around 
the Union lines, and ending at the Hillsboro pike on the west. 
From there, around to the Cumberland his cavalry kept actively 
scouting^ Between the Hillsboro pike and Granny White road 
the lines approached each other to within half a mile at one 
point, then stretched apart. East of the Franklin pike they were 
separated by a distance of two miles. Hood placed his guns in 
formidable and commanding positions, and apparently dared the 
Northern army to come out and fight him ; but Thomas was not 
ready. He was making all haste, however ; and his batteries 
opened a lively fire at the Confederate works. 

Now the mere presence of this Southern army in front of 
Nashville was something the Northern pr^s could not tolerate. 
The same " on to Richmond " spirit that had plunged a raw and 
unprepared command into the fire of the first Bull Run, began to 
clamor at Thomas. He was implored, urged, then ordered to 
attack at once. There never is a time when a newspaper editor 
does not think he knows more about handling an army than 
the man who happens to be at the head of it. Then came 
columns of threats and abuse at Thomas because he would 
not attack. Feeling sure that every day added to his own 
strength and his opponent's weakness, Thomas desired to wait 
until he had mounted his cavalry. He had promised Sherman 
that if Hood came north of the Tennessee he would ruin his' 
army, and he meant to do it ; but to " ruin it " he must not only 
beat it, he must pursue and grind it to pieces. This he could 
not do without cavalry. 

Then the cabinet and the war department began to worry 



IMPATIENCE AT WASHINGTON. 21$ 

General Thomas. Knowing full well that his cavalry was still 
afoot, and that most of his men were the " discards " of com- 
mands that had gone with Sherman, it was considered necessary 
to prod and push him into action. " He should have fallen on 
Hood right after Franklin," said the wiseacres at Washington. 
" He should have pounded him with his fresh troops." 

Mr. Stanton, early in December, telegraphed to General Grant 
that Thomas' conduct looked " too much like the McClellan and 
Rosecrans' strategy of do nothing." General G^ant began 
sending urgent telegrams from City Point near Petersburg to 
Thomas at Nashville, setting forth the theory that Hood should 
be attacked at once ; but not, most fortunately, giving positive 
orders. On December 5th, however, he wired: "Time strengthens 
him, in all probability, as much as it does you." On December 
6th, 4 p. M., he sent these peremptory orders: "Attack Hood at 
once, and wait no longer for a remount for your cavalry." 

This was hard. General Thomas had but one brigade in the 
saddle. Forrest was whirling all around Hood's flanks with over 
ten thousand horsemen, but orders were orders. Thomas re- 
plied that he would make immediate dispositions and attack as 
ordered, but thought it would be hazardous. Nevertheless his 
troops were not yet concentrated, and not until the 9th was he 
in readiness to strike. All the intervening hours he had been 
compelled to read or hear of all manner of criticism, injustice 
and abuse from the press or the authorities. It was enough to 
drive most men to desperation, but General Thomas remained 
calm and determined. On the 9th he issued his orders for attack, 
and that very day orders were telegraphed to Washington 
relieving him from the command, and placing General Schofield 
in his stead. A terrible storm of rain, freezing as it fell, began 
at daybreak on the 9th and nobody rou/d attack, and this gave 
General Grant time to think better of his order relieving General 
Thomas. It was suspended. The storm lasted for three days. 
The whole country was covered with sleet and ice. Men could 
not march or move at all. Horses slipped and fell and seriously 
injured their riders; but the whole nation was clamoring now, 
and on the afternoon of the i ith General Grant again telegraphed 



2i6 NASHVILLE. 

from City Point to delay no longer for weather or reinforce- 
ments. Thomas replied on the I2th that he would attack the 
moment the sleet melted; and on the 14th General Grant him- 
self started for Nashville via Washington, under the mistaken 
impression that he could get there before that long-deferred 
attack would be made. At Washington on the night of the 15th 
!he strained anxiety of all the cabinet was allayed by the brief 
despatch which there met General Grant: 

"Attacked enemy's left this morning; .drove it from the river, 
below the city, very nearly to Franklin pike, distance about eight 
miles." 

In these modest, soldierly words General Thomas reported 
the result of as scientific, masterly and gallant a battle as ever 
was fought on our continent, and the outcry against him gave 
place to a burst of admiration and enthusiastic applause. 

Noon of the 14th of December came, before the south winds 
had thawed away the armor of ice and sleet that had made, for 
nearly a week, all movement on cither side an impossibility. 
Then that afternoon the calm and patient leader called together 
his principal generals, explained to them in quiet words his plan 
of attack, and gave his orders. There were assembled Schofield, 
the victor of Franklin ; A. J. Smith, of the Army of the Tennes- 
see; T. J. Wood, now at the head of the gallant Fourth corps, in 
place of that fierce fighter Stanley, who had been painfully 
wounded at the Harpeth ; Steedman, in whose command were 
many regiments of colored troops destined to make their maiden 
battle ; Donaldson, who recruited his brigade from the army of 
quartermasters' employes ; and Miller, who commanded the 
little garrison of the city proper. These were the leaders of the 
line ; but with them stood the energetic head of the cavalry corps 
of the Western army, Major-General Wilson, who among his 
division commanders had some admirable and experienced 
cavalrymen ; and now and not until now was Wilson able to 
report his corps ready for work. Only three-fourths of their 
number were mounted, to be sure, and only one-half well 
mounted ; but the others could and would fight as infantry, and 
there were 6^000 at least who were in splendid trim. On the 



THOMAS' MASTERLY STRATEGY. 21/ 

1 2th, leading their horses, these fellows slid and stumbled across 
the river from Edgefield, where they had been encamped, and 
went into bivouac under the guns. 

The meeting at General Thomas' headquarters was long. 
Every point was thoroughly explained, and when it broke up 
and the generals scattered to rejoin their commands, every man 
knew to the last detail the duty expected of him. That night 
there was an unaccustomed stir in the camps around Nashville. 
Hours before the dawn the men were summoned to arms, and, 
sleepily rousing from their pallets, the soldiers buckled on their 
accoutrements, turned the overcoat collars well up about their 
ears, and silently took their places in the ranks. 

Just as at Leuthen, at Austerlitz, at Jena, a dense fog hung 
over the earth, obscuring all movements, and deadening the 
sound of tramping hoof or rumbling caisson. Just as at Leuthen 
the heavy columns moving forward into the mist turned to the 
right when within cannon-range of the enemy, and in compact 
order marched away parallel to the Southern lines until they 
reached the Hillsboro and Hardin pikes. Out these they 
tramped in solemn silence, while Miller and Donaldson with 
their brigades quitted the muddy suburbs of the capital and occu- 
pied the redoubts and earthworks vacated by the men of the 
Fourth, Sixteenth and Twenty-third corps. Just as at Leuthen 
the plan was to hurl a powerful force on the enemy's left, deceiv- 
ing him meanwhile by a feint at assault on the other end of his 
line, and, by " turning " and driving him in from the Hillsboro 
road, to double up the line, force it back on the centre, and then, 
in grand assault from the west, sweep it across the Granny White 
road, and, if possible, cut off the retreat towards Franklin. Once 
driven in and " turned " on his left, Hood would be compelled to 
abandon his hold on the heights near the river on the east, and 
fall back from the line of intrenchments he had thrown up, then 
accept battle in the open country, man to man and gun to gun ; 
and of the issue of that combat Thomas had no doubt whatever. 
All that was necessary was secrecy, and prompt and cordial 
co-operation on the part of his officers. 

To Steedman, with Cruft's, Miller's and Donaldson's troops, 



2l8 NASHVILLE. 

was left the care of the defensive works and the duty of making 
a formidable assault on the rifle-pits and earthworks of Hood's 
right flank, while the main army essayed the difficult feat of 
working around the other flank in the face of their active cav- 
alry. 

Steedman early designated the troops for his trying duty. 
It is far harder to get cut up with killed and wounded in a pre- 
tended assault, than in one which holds forth the glorious possi- 
bility of carrying the coveted position. Steedman's men were 
to make believe desire and attempt to carry a position far too 
strong to invite actual attack in front, and, in order to success- 
fully deceive the enemy, it was necessary that they should ad- 
vance with every appearance of determination. Three columns 
under Colonels Morgan, Thompson and Grosvenor, composed 
mainly of troops from Ohio and Indiana, with several finely 
drilled regiments of hopeful colored troops, were in readiness, 
and two light batteries were posted on their flanks to aid in the 
movement. 

In the earliest gray of the misty dawn, the troops of the Union 
army poured forth from their earthworks to the southwest of 
Nashville, and pushed boldly out over the rolling, open country. 
On the extreme right, in widely dispersed order, so as to cover 
a large tract of the neighborhood, marched the horsemen of 
Wilson's cavalry corps. One small division under General R. 
W. Johnson, following the river road, moved westward in search 
of any of Forrest's people who might lie in that direction — a 
wise precaution that rendered the thoughtful commander-in- 
chief secure of his right flank, for long before the roar of the 
guns from the distant eastern front of the city told Johnson that 
Steedman had begun his attack, he himself found his advance 
confronted by a brigade of Forrest's men under General Chal- 
mers. 

A mile to the south of Johnson's division, Croxton's cavalry 
were feeling their way out across the open ground between 
the Charlotte pike and the Johnsonville railway : Knipe's brig- 
ade cautiously advanced along the Hardin pike, while the fine 
division of General Edward Hatch covered the ground between 



THE GREAT BATTLE BEGINS. gxQ 

him and the right of the infantry lines. The entire front thus • 
covered and patrolled by the cavalry was something like four 
miles in extent, but it was not here that the enemy was expected 
in any force. 

Marching out southwestward along the Hardin pike came 
the corps of A. J. Smith, its leading division commanded by 
General Kenner Garrard, and an odd circumstance occurs to us 
at this moment as connected with the battle of Nashville. Four 
of the principal participants, Generals Thomas, Hood, Garrard 
and R. W. Johnson, at the outbreak of the war were brother 
officers in the same regiment, the old Second cavalry of the 
regular army, and little did Thomas and Hood then suppose 
that the winter of '64 would see them commanders of two hos- 
tile armies grappling in a deadly struggle for the control of the 
western border States. 

Following in the track of the cavalry a mile beyond the works, 
Garrard's division then turned to the left and moved out throuo-h 

o 

the fields towards the Hillsboro road, and here Smith's three 
divisions were ordered to form their line ; McArthur's division, 
groping out between the Hardin and Charlotte pikes, had a harder 
and longer road to travel, and before he was a mile outside the 
works, the skirmishers, well to the front, stirred up the outlying 
pickets of the Southern cavalry. It was barely daylight. Hardly 
an object could be distinguished at ten yards' distance through 
the fog, but even as the sudden crack of carbine and " Spring- 
field" burst on the startled ear, down among the rough slopes 
and hummocks to the southwest, there came from east of Nash- 
ville a thundering roar that woke the valley into vehement life. 
Covered by the huge Dahlgrens and rifles of the gunboats on 
the river, masked by the fire of the entire line of eastern works, 
Steedman's devoted column had marched out from the shelter 
of the heights along Brown's creek, crossed that narrow stream, 
deployed along the Murfreesboro pike, and now, facing south, 
was advancing upon the Southern right flank, whirling in their 
skirmishers before the long blue lines. The great battle had 
begun. 

At eight o'clock on this dismal wintry morning, through fog 



220 NASHVILLE. 

and drizzle, through yielding and muddy by-roads, through 
rough, untrodden fields, the army of General Thomas had pushed 
its way into the assigned positions, and three strong and enthusi- 
astic corps were massed in front of the left of Hood's lines, 
waiting only for the word " forward," while that buoyant com- 
mander himself, deceived by the roar of battle to the east into 
the belief that the main attack would come from that point, was 
hurrying troops thither from his centre. Thomas' plan was 
working to a charm. 

Sending his chief of staff, Colonel Whipple, whose well-won 
pet-name of "Old Faithful" fully describes the man, to order 
Steedman to press the assault with all apparent energy, Thomas 
now rode forward to direct the grand turning movement in 
person. At this moment all three corps commanders, Smith, 
Schofield and Wood, were west of the Hillsboro pike, and the 
Union line, covering a general front of about two miles out in 
the fields, was facing a little east of south. On the left stood 
Beatty's division of the Fourth corps; next on his right was 
Kimball's and then Elliott's, all formed in double battle-lines 
with strong veils of skirmishers. Beyond the Fourth corps and 
farther advanced, in readiness to wheel to the left, were the three 
divisions of General A. J. Smith ; McArthur's being on the right, 
Garrard in the centre and left, while Moore's division was 
formed in reserve. ^i^- 

In rear of the centre of the line thus formed by Wood and 
Smith stood Schofield with the Twenty-third corps — Cox and 
Couch being his division commanders ; while on the extreme 
right, aligned with McArthur's men, yet ever eagerly, impa- 
tiently edging forward as though bound to get an advantage at 
the start, were the troopers of Hatch's division. Dismounted, 
and with their horses led well to the rear, these extemporized 
footmen were bent on showing their more experienced infantry 
comrades that they could head a charge even if they had to 
crawl to do it. Croxton and Knipe, finding the country clear 
for miles out to the southwest, had wheeled to the left and come 
up in rear of Hatch. Johnson, way down the river towards the 
Davidson house, was just beginning to exchange compliments 
with Chalmers' guns. 



"OLD SLOW TROT' OUTGENERALS HOOD. 221 

Beyond all question, Hood had not looked for this advance 
on his open left. Perhaps he too was thinking of the old regi- 
mental name by which the troopers had been wont to call their 
grave, earnest major in the days gone by. He did not give 
" Old Slow Trot " credit for a brilliant move ; he had forgotten 
the fable of the tortoise and the hare. But here at half-past eight 
A. M. stood his former battalion commander ready to double him 
up, the moment the fog lifted, and, except for some heavy skir- 
mishing with McArthur's men as they swung around across the 
fields, he had no idea of his coming. 

Nine o'clock. Off to the east, gunboat and battery, Rodman, 
Parrott and Dahlgren are thundering on the heavy air with re- 
doubled fury ; the housetops of the distant city are thronged 
with awe-stricken spectators; the brown parapets on the slopes 
are alive with eager blue-coats peering through the thinning 
mists for the first signs of the opening battle. Steedman has 
received his orders, and now the long blue lines, heavily backed 
by supporting battalions, sweep forward in grim earnest; stern, 
set, white faces march side by side with the nervous and excit- 
able black, but there is no falter — no craven in either. In front 
lies the railway; across it the Southern guns; and now as the 
skirmishers draw aside and the solid battle-lines come on at the 
sharp double-quick, the barred battle-flags of the Confederacy 
leap to the crests ; the gunners spring to their deadly work ; 
the long kneeling lines of gray-clad infantry train their rifles on 
the still mist-crowned ranks and wait for the word " fire." It 
comes soon and sudden, and a denser fog, the thick, stifling 
cloud of battle, hangs like a pall over the lightning flashes on 
the field. A ringing cheer, a roaring volley answer the crash 
of the Southern guns, and on go the blue-clad ranks ; down into 
the shallow trench of the railway leap the lines ; up the steep 
slope of the cut they climb, and Steedman's feint becomes de- 
spite him an attack in dead earnest. Ohio, Indiana and Ethiopia 
have bearded the lion in his den ; the stars and stripes are actually 
in among the cross-bars, and a hand-to-hand fight rages over the 
rifle-pits along the railway. 

This is unlooked for, but is none the less effective. Hood 



22 2 NASHVILLE. 

sends whole brigades in rapid run to strengthen his right. The 
furious thunder of the guns, firing at random through the fog, 
makes him beheve the assault five times as serious as it is. He 
concentrates a heavy force against Steedman's bravely fighting 
column ; batteries are run up to sweep that long chasm of the 
railway cut with their fire, and presently, taken in flank, stormed 
by grape and canister along the whole length of their line, 
Morgan and Grosvenor find their position no longer tenable. 
Their duty is most faithfully^ gallantly done ; the whole object 
of the attack is accomplished — more than was expected of them 
those stubborn brigades have finished, and now Steedman issues 
the order to fall back still threatening the works. The defenders 
pause for breath and mutual congratulations over the repulse 
of the Yankee lines, and even as they are wondering what will 
come next, the answer is heard booming over from the far west 
Covered by his brilliant feint on Hood's right, Thomas has turned 
the unguarded left and is storming down upon the astonished 
centre. 

It is high noon. The fog has gone and Hood's eyes are at 
last opened. For hours the men of the Fourth and Sixteenth 
corps and Hatch's impatient dragoons have been waiting for the 
signal to push ahead, and at last it comes. Leaping from ridge 
to ridge the dismounted troopers have rushed upon a small 
brigade of Confederate infantry posted in the woods and sent it 
scurrying beyond the Hardin house out by the pike, then wheel- 
ing around to the left, where the rolling volleys of McArthur's 
men seem to call them to support, they find their infantry friends 
halted before a couple of stout little forts perched on knobs a 
few hundred feet apart and bristling with field-guns. Never 
stopping to dress their ranks, the cavalry no sooner catch sight 
of these works than they go at them with a ringing cheer, and 
McArthur's brigades, not to be outdone, throw their muskets 
over the shoulder and join in the rush. The very impetus of 
the onset is too much for the defenders. In ten minutes the 
brown parapets are covered by madly cheering men in blue — 
cavalry guidons waving over the redoubt on the right; infantry 
banners over that on the left, and so far " honors are easy " with 



THE CONFEDERATE LEFT FLANK TURNED, 223 

Hatch and McArthur. Each has taken four guns and a fort. 
The light batteries have done their share in glorious style, for 
they drove the gunners from their pieces before the rush was 
made, and Coon's brigade of troopers with their Spencer carbines 
— those terrible shooters the Southern soldiers used to say we 
"loaded in the morning and kept shooting all day" — swarmed 
over the infantry supports with such a hell of fire that there was 
no withstanding them. 

Meantime the Fourth corps had been doing capital work. 
Squarely in front of Wood's left stood the steep and rugged 
height known as Montgomery hill, east of the Hillsboro' pike. 
Here the Southern lines and earthworks jutted forward in a 
strong salient, for the trees had been cut away, branches falling 
toward the Union lines forming an "abatis" of most approved 
construction ; the slopes were everywhere commanded by field- 
guns in position, and, properly garrisoned and defended, those 
works along the Brentwood ridge were capable of resisting most 
formidable assault in front ; but Hood, as we have seen, had been 
drawing upon his left and centre to resist the supposed attack 
in force over on his extreme right. No real attempt was looked 
for here, and when all was ready and Wood's light batteries 
dashed forward to open on the frowning guns on the heights, 
the Confederate officers were astounded at the supposed audacity 
of the move, and still more astounded when, in long blue lines 
supporting a heavy charging column, the Fourth corps swept 
out across the Hillsboro' pike, and, Post's gallant brigade lead- 
ing the rush, charged cheering upon the works. Then for a few 
moments the roar of cannon was appalling, but despite shell and 
canister, abatis and wire-and-stake-entanglements, with which 
the Southerners had covered the slopes, the Union troops 
swarmed over the works, driving the gunners before them, and 
even before Smith and Hatch had carried the redoubts out to 
the southwest, the banners of the Fourth corps were waving over 
Montgomery hill, the highest point on the advanced line, and 
Hood saw with dismay that old Major " Slow Trot " had pulle6 
the wool over his eyes and dealt him a disastrous blow. Novt, 
with all speed, he orders back his divisions to the west, and 



224 



NASHVILLE. 



with eager zeal they come — but too late. The left is turned ; 
the works are gone, and Hood's advanced line is no longer 
tenable. 

At two o'clock in the afternoon the Southern lines that at 
daybreak were defiantly facing northward towards the dome of 
the State capitol, were now sullenly facing this unlooked-for 
assault from the west. The Twenty-third corps under Schofield, 
quitting its position in reserve, was pushed out southward be- 
yond Smith's divisions, and there, facing eastward, formed line, 
still further encircling the Southern left ; and while this was being 
done Hatch, Croxton and Knipe, with their plucky dragoons, 
whirled up all the picket and skirmish lines they could find in 
the woods to the south, and then lapped around to the left again, 
prolonging Schofield's line, thus working to the rear of Hood's 
army. It was all part of the preconcerted plan, except perhaps 
that originally it was intended that Schofield should come up 
into line between Smith and Wood ; but once out in the fight it 
was found far easier to move him over to the south while masked 
by the lines of Garrard's and McArthur's divisions. 

And now once more the general advance begins. The cavalry 
and the divisions of Schofield find nothing in front of them but 
open fields, patches of woods and little country roads over which 
their steady advance in line sends reeling back the few scattered 
commands that oppose them. Smith's three divisions, all up in 
one general alignment by this time, have harder work, for 
they have to drive strong bodies of Southern infantry and well- 
served batteries from height to height, and across the Hillsboro 
pike, where, behind the heavy stone walls, the gray-clad lines 
make stubborn and bloody fight. McArthur's men, who have 
led all the morning and are wild with enthusiasm over their suc- 
cess, hang on to their advantage with reckless daring. Hill's 
little brigade dashes forward upon a battery near the pike, cap- 
tures two guns, the fort and many prisoners, but loses its own 
gallant chief and an hundred men. 

Still farther to the Union left is still harder fighting. Here 
ridge after ridge, height after height bristles with field-artillery, 
and bids defiance with well-planned works to assault from the 



HOOD BAFFLED, BEATEN AND BEWILDERED. 225 

northern front ; but Wood's Fourth corps men, having carried 
Montgomery hill, train scores of guns upon the heights beyond; 
battery after battery is run to the front, unlimbered and set to 
work, and, under cover of the fierce storm of shot and shell, the 
infantry creep forward into position close under the Southern guns. 
For an hour the thunder of cannon goes on uninterruptedly ; 
then there is a sudden lull ; the blue-clad ranks spring to 
their feet, and, with Kimball's whole division leading, the Fourth 
corps dashes at the second line of works. At four o'clock 
Beatty, Elliott and Kimball have carried everything in their 
front, and now, facing eastward, the Fourth corps rolls up the 
Confederate line as it pushes forward in stern determination. 
It is growing dark. The short wintry day is almost over, and 
from the heights close in front of Nashville far out to the south- 
west the whole country is lighted up with the flashing glare of 
battle, and covered with the low-lying cloud of smoke. Baffled, 
beaten and bewildered, but still fighting savagely, Hood has 
loosed his hold on the entire line of works and is drifting back 
towards the Overton hills, crowded in thither by the resistless 
pressure of the Union army. Kimball has captured half a dozen 
guns and the battle-flags of some over-confident battalions that 
too long clung to their works. Garrard's men, aligned with the 
right of the Fourth corps, have leaped upon another battery in 
time to dispute its ownership with Wood. Hatch, way out on 
the right, has run down and captured a third battery as it desper- 
ately strove to get back under cover, and everywhere there is 
triumph and success. One thing only can and does stop the 
matchless advance — darkness. 

Oh, for three hours, more of daylight! Wood has actually 
swept away one-half of the Southern line and has crossed the 
Granny White road ; Smith has driven division after division 
back from ridge to ridge ; Schofield, seizing the heights over- 
looking the Granny White road two miles south of where Wood 
has crossed it, is now fiercely battling with Lee and Cheatham's 
old men for the road itself; and, far out to the south, Wilson's 
restless troopers are forcing their way through wood, ravine artd 
cross-road in the effort to reach the Franklin pike. Three hours 



226 NASHVILLE. 

more of light, and even retreat would have been impossible to 
Hood ; but the sun goes down upon the scene of his great dis- 
aster, and there is respite until the morrow. 

Seventeen guns, twelve hundred prisoners and several lines 
of works are the trophies of the day for Thomas, and his losses 
in killed and wounded have been surprisingly small. Skill, 
science and indomitable firmness have won for him, and for the 
nation he so loyally has served, a triumph far greater than any 
that could have resulted from an earlier attempt, and at an 
infinitely smaller cost in precious lives. It may be true that 
the beloved old hero in his care and thought for his men 
was sometimes slow ; but, how fortunately, how utterly was he 
sure! 

All that night the despatches came flashing in from Washing- 
ton. The President, the war office, the general of the army, the 
cabinet, all joined in enthusiastic tribute to the calm, self-poised 
soldier whose strategy and science had astonished them as much 
as it had Hood. 

General Grant, who had left the Armies of the Potomac and 
the James to shift for themselves, and started for Nashville to 
fight the battle according to his own ideas, concluded that night 
at Washington that he could trust it to Thomas after all. Logan, 
who had been ordered to hasten to Nashville with the probable 
intent of supplanting Thomas, was stopped by telegraphic order 
at Louisville, and the editorial wit and wisdom of the North, that 
for a fortnight had been levelled in all manner of abuse at the 
devoted head of General Thomas, was bottled for future use. 
The sole reply — the only satisfaction for all the prodding, criti- 
cism, abuse and vituperation that the sturdy soldier permitted 
himself, was contained in the brief words of that most charac- 
teristic and modest despatch : "Attacked enemy's left this morn- 
ing ; drove it from the river, below city, very nearly to Franklin 
pike, distance about eight miles." 

So ended the first day. 

All that night Hood's wearied people were worked to get in 
readiness for a fiercer battle with the coming morrow. Falling 
back to Overton Heights, five miles from the city, Hood there 



HOOD'S NEW POSITION CAREFULLY STUDIED. ^^7 

planted the right of his new hne, while his left extended out 
westward across the Granny White pike. The position was far 
stronger naturally, and much more contracted than the one 
occupied on the previous day. The infantry lines, behind their 
hastily constructed rifle-pits, extended along the base of a rocky 
ridge on which v/ere posted a score of batteries commanding 
every approach. Following the trend of the hills the right and 
left of the line were thrown back at right angles to the front, 
securing it against flank attack, and, though greatly reduced in 
force after the sharp fighting of the 15th, Hood had now only 
some two and a half miles of front to defend instead of six or 
eight, as he had before. He was still in trim to make a splendid 
struggle, and there was no doubting Hood's courage. 

Early on the morning of the i6th the Union army was again 
in ranks and eager for the fray. There had been cavalry skir- 
mishing since dawn. Johnson had come up from the river re- 
porting the enemy disappeared below, and from Schofield's right 
far around to the southward and actually along the Granny 
White road, a continuous line of cavalry skirmishers now ex- 
tended. In front of the city Steedman's divisions on the extreme 
left moved cautiously forward across the open fields, while the 
Fourth corps, seizing the Franklin pike, faced southward, de- 
ployed its lines and pushed out over the abandoned position of 
the day before, in search of the new line of the enemy. Not 
until noon were the troops halted in front of the Southern works 
and reformed for the coming assault. It was soon seen that some 
hard fighting was to be done, but the men were in the mood 
for it. 

Riding along his entire front from Wood's left to where Scho- 
field threatened the western flank of the enemy's lines. General 
Thomas carefully studied the position before giving his final 
orders. Well knowing the spirit and temper of his army by this 
time, he had no doubt of his ability to whip Hood out of the 
new works ; but the problem was how to do it with the least 
loss of life to his devoted men. Overton hill with its earthworks 
and abatis was undoubtedly the strongest part of the line, and 
Steedman's columns and Wood's left division were confronted 



228 NASHVILLE. 

by batteries in position, and by finished fortifications as they had 
been on the previous day. These had to be carried by assault, 
and once more Wood called upon Colonel Post with his brigade 
to take the lead. A furious cannonade of an hour's duration was 
the prelude to the attack ; then, with Post in the van of the Fourth 
corps, and Thompson and Grosvenor with their enthusiastic 
darkies on the left, the grand assault began. It was three o'clock 
in the afternoon, and General Thomas was at the moment farther 
over to the west in rear of McArthur's division of the Sixteenth 
corps. Wood and Steedman had ordered their charging columns 
to march steadily forward with ranks aligned until they reached 
the abatis immediately in front of the parapets ; then to make a 
rush for the guns. It was a stirring sight as those solid bat- 
talions moved calmly out upon the low ground at the base of 
the heights, and in disciplined order began the advance upon 
the slopes. For a few moments the Union batteries hurled their 
shells far over the heads of the columns to keep down as much 
as possible the opposing fire; but, regardless of this, the South- 
ern gunners depressed their muzzles, dropped solid shot and 
shell for case and canister, and opened on Post and Grosvenor, 
dealing havoc in the ranks. But out sprang the officers, some 
seizing their colors and waving them way in front of the advanc- 
ing lines ; and so, despite the cruel gaps and rents torn through 
the battalions, they pushed sturdily ahead, black and white vying 
in the onset, crashed through the stiff-branching abatis, down 
into the muddy ditches, and then, officers leading, up they clam- 
bered to the parapets. Another moment and all along the lines 
the Stars and Stripes were waving on the works, and with flash- 
ing swords and mad cheering the officers were urging on their 
men. 

Then up rose the reserves, and from thousands of levelled 
rifles the Southern infantry poured in deadly volleys, sweeping 
the parapets and hurling the assailants back into the ditch. 
Once more the gunners sprang to their work, and — it was no use 
trying — the blue overcoats went reeling back down the slopes, 
leaving hundreds of upturned faces, black and white, writhing 
in the death-agony upon the bloody slopes of Overton hill. 



A SCENE OF WILD ENTHUSIASM. 



229 



Down at the base their leaders rallied and reformed them for 
another charge. Once again brave Colonel Post was called for, 
to command, but there was no answer from his cheery lips. He 
lay among the dead and wounded, crippled but still living ; and 
for the moment Wood and Steedman held off their men while 
waiting for news from the right. 

Here things were going gloriously. Too impatient to wait for 
the flank attack expected of the Twenty-third corps. General 
McArthur begged permission to lead his division to the assault 
of the position in his front ; and Thomas, hastening off to the 
right to push matters in that direction, gave what McArthur 
was eager enough to regard as sufficient assent, and so desig- 
nated McMillen's brigade to lead. Square in his front was a 
wooded height on which rested the left of the Confederate line, 
a strong and threatening position ; but McArthur felt that his 
men were capable of anything by this time. Five regiments 
sprang forward at McMillen's call — Illinois, Indiana and Minne- 
sota in the first line ; Indiana and Ohio in the second. "As soon 
as you are half way up the height," said McArthur, " Hubbard 
and Hill's brigade will advance ; " and, ordering his men not to 
fire a shot until squarely in among the rifle-pits, McMillen led 
them forward. They went springing up the western slope of the 
heights ; gun after gun whirled around and opened on them ; the 
rifle-pits blazed with the sputtering fire of the infantry de- 
fenders ; but on they scrambled, and, long before they were half 
way up, Hubbard, finding it impossible to hold back his men, 
who, like hounds in the leash, were struggling to get free, struck 
spurs to his horse, and with half-laughing " (Sc'///^? on, then ! " 
dashed out to the front, and with one wild cheer the brigade 
sprang after its young leader. Then Hill's men took up the 
rush ; Garrard's whole division swept to the front in deter- 
mined support ; and so it happened that, before the Twenty-third 
corps could attack the left flank, the Sixteenth was tumbling 
over it. Then came a scene of wild enthusiasm, of the thrilling 
delight of battle-triumph. Confident in their ability to repel the 
assault, the Southern commander held his men to their work, 
and two plucky divisions and half a dozen batteries deluged the 
13 



230 NASHVILLE. 

blue lines with death-dealing fire ; but, somehow or other, they 
■would not stop. Without a halt, without a waver, 071 they came; 
and, before they could fully realize their peril, the defenders of 
the Southern left were caught between two sweeping lines of 
fire — McArthur and Garrard all along their front, McMillen on 
their left and rear. They could not stand; they could not repel ; 
they could not get away. To rise and attempt to fall back was 
certain death. There was no help for it. Up went the empty 
hands ; down went the guns ; to earth sank the barred battle- 
flags ; and, riding in among the prostrate grays as the signal 
" cease firing " rang along the lines, and mad cheers went up 
from thousands of loyal throats, McArthur found three generals, 
twenty-seven cannon, a dozen battle-flags and a whole division 
of infantry, the prizes of his gallant assault. 

The thunder of the guns only seemed to give emphasis to the 
storm of cheering which swept along the Union lines at this 
moment. Right and left the grand volume of sound was taken 
up and prolonged to the distant flanks. It could have but one 
meaning — victory — and in wild emulation the entire army sprang 
forward to the attack or pursuit of anything that might appear 
in its front. Off to the south, their horses far behind them in 
the woods, Wilson's dismounted troopers plunged through brush 
and brake, driving the cavalry skirmishers before them, Coon's 
brigade working its way in front of the lines of the Twenty- 
third corps. Cox's division came up in time to seize some of 
the hastily constructed works on the southern left, and, with them, 
eight guns and a number of prisoners. Wood and Steedman 
once more led forward their divisions to the assault of Overton's 
hill, and this time, reanimated by the wild cheering from the 
west, there was no stopping them. Kimball, Beatty and Elliott 
^wept over the works in their front ; nine more cannon, hundreds 
of prisoners and small arms and two stands of colors, were their 
share of the trophies ; and now, with night fast closing in upon 
the scene, and with the Union lines almost as fast closing in 
upon the fleeing remnants of his beaten army, Hood in despair 
turned southward his horse's head. All was now rout and dis- 
order ; all were in wild retreat for Franklin. 



DEMORALIZATION ATTENDING HOOD'S RETREAT. 23 1 

Fast as the horses could be brought up from the rear, Wilson's 
troopers were remounted and hurried eastward to cut the line 
of retreat on the Franklin pike ; but the horses came too late ; 
the darkness came too soon. Hatch, Croxton and Knipe, after 
a long day's fighting, went into bivouac far in advance on the 
Granny White road ; and the Fourth corps, pushing along the 
Franklin pike in hot pursuit, only stopped when they could no 
longer, see their way, and then threw themselves by the road- 
side for such sleep as they could snatch. 

Dawn of the 17th revealed the fact that the utmost demorali- 
zation attended Hood's retreat. Arms, accoutrements and " im- 
pedimenta " of every kind strewed the road. The only real 
army that maintained the cause of the Confederacy in the west 
was utterly routed ; and, true to his promise, Thomas had 
" ruined " Hood. From the " initial feint to the final charge," 
as Van Home justly says of it, " this battle moved on glo- 
riously." It was skillful, scientific and complete from begin- 
ning to end. Every contingency was provided for; every detail 
planned ; every movement studied. Its immediate fruits were the 
capture of fifty-three field-guns, twenty-five battle-flags, thousands 
of small arms, four thousand five hundred prisoners, including 
four general officers, and the complete clearance of Tennessee 
from the presence of any organized enemy. 

In the pursuit that followed, many more prisoners and battle- 
flags were captured. Storm and sleet, and swollen rivers pre- 
vented full and vigorous action here, and many a command was 
enabled to get back across the Tennessee that, under other cir- 
cumstances of weather, would have been captured entire ; but 
the rout was complete. The army never rallied, and in all the 
annals of the great war no one battle had proved more crushing 
and decisive in its results than the great victory of Nashville. 
Here at least the defeated army was so utterly whipped as never 
again to be driven into the field. 

Early in the spring of 1866, describing by the aid of large 
maps the battle of Nashville to his classes at the Military 
Academy at West Point, Professor Mahan, the venerable head 
of the department of military engineering, strategy and grand 



232 NASHVILLE. 

tactics, turned impressively to his audience at the close of his 
lecture : " Gentlemen," said he, " it deserves to be ranked with 
Leuthen and with Austerlitz. It was science itself." 

On the 29th of December, addressing his army, old " Major 
Slow-Trot " quietly summed up the results of the campaign. 
He was never known to exaggerate, and this was what he 
wrote : 

" You have diminished the forces of the rebel army since it 
crossed the Tennessee river to invade the State, at the least esti- 
mate, fifteen thousand men, among whom were killed, wounded 
or captured eighteen general officers. Your captures from the 
enemy, as far as reported, amount to sixty-eight pieces of 
artillery, ten thousand prisoners, as many stand of small arms, 
and between thirty and forty flags." 

In closing the story of Nashville, the writer cannot forego 
the pleasure of quoting from Captain Price's history of the Fifth 
Cavalry of the regular army, so many of whose officers had been 
prominent in this great battle. No words can too fervently tell the 
love and reverence in which the memory of George H. Thomas 
is held by those who knew him, and no tribute more just, more 
feeling has ever been written than that with which Captain Price 
closes the record of that honored life : 

" General Thomas was prominent in four campaigns, two of 
which he commanded in person, while he was second in com- 
mand in the others. His enduring fame rests upon five battles, 
and in these he made no mistakes. He was grand and far-seeing 
at Mill Springs ; magnificent in fortitude and judgment at Stone 
River; sublime in tenacity at Chickamauga ; impetuous in attack- 
ing the enemy's centre at Missionary Ridge ; and terrible in ex- 
ecution at Nashville, the only battle of the war, except the 
minor one at Mill Springs, which resulted in the annihilation of 
the opposing army." 

General Thomas " did not believe that victories should be 
won by an immense sacrifice of life. He always aimed to ac- 
complish the best results with the least possible loss ; hence he 
was always economical of life and suffering." We have seen 
that at Nashville, wherj^^ with .the miflingucQ of loss, he accom- 



TRIBUTE TO GENERAL THOMAS. 



233 



plished a maximum in results. " He moved slowly, but with 
resistless power, being a ponderous hitter and as unyielding as a 
rock." It w^as this latter quality that enabled him to save from 
destruction the Union army at Stone River, and later that won 
him the proud name of " The Rock of Chickamauga." " His 
loyalty to the country, devotion to duty and invincible courage 
made him one of the noblest figures in American history, and 
won him a position among the first soldiers of the world." 

But not as a general alone was Thomas distinguished. His 
private life, his personal character were stainless, were beautiful 
in simplicity, strength and unblemished honor. 

" He never knew what envy was, nor hate; 
His soul was filled with worth and honesty. . , . 
He neither wealth nor places sought ; 
For others, not himself, he fought. . . . 
So, blessed of all, he died ; but far more blessed were we 
If we were sure to live till we again could see 
A man as great in war, as just in peace, as he." 




FIVE FORKS 




AND 

LEE'S SURRENDER. 

1865. 

ETURNING again to the Army of the Potomac 

we find it in winter-quarters and intrenched 
before Petersburg, at whose walls it has been 
vainly battering ever since the early summer 
of '64. A terrible experience has it encoun- 
tered since we saw it last at Gettysburg. The 
winter was passed in the bleak Virginia woods 
watching the fords of the Rapidan and waiting 
for a chance, that seemed never destined to 
come, of striking the enemy at an unguarded moment. Meade 
had made a well-planned move on the Southern lines at Mine 
Run. The corps of Lee's army were widely separated. Prompt 
action on the part of the Union commanders would have enabled 
Meade to cut the lines in two, but a corps commander who had 
failed him before failed him again. Twelve hours of valuable 
time were lost, and when morning dawned on the day after the 
appointed day of battle Warren, who was designated to attack 
the Southern right with the gallant Second corps, of which he 
was now the chief, found in his front, instead of feeble and open 
lines, height after height seamed with intrenchments, bristling 
with abatis and frowning with a score of batteries. The Union 
lines were to advance at the signal of Warren's guns from the 
distant left, and in grim expectancy the veterans stood in line. 
An hour passed and still no sound. " What's the trouble ? " 
queried a knot of officers near the centre of an aide-de-camp 
234 



Warren unjustly cENsuRfit). 237 

WHO went galloping by. "Oh, it's Warren's benefit and he won't 
play!" was the impatient answer, and, for the time being, an im- 
pression went abroad that Warren, who had done so much to 
save the day at Gettysburg, was turning timid when intrusted 
with a great command. But Warren was wise ; and Meade him- 
self, riding over to inquire the reason of his subordinate's ap- 
parent failure, justified the hesitation. It was no fault of Warren 
or the Second corps. They had done their part and were ready 
for more, but the failure of others had permitted the concentra- 
tion of the Southern lines in his front, and, when the veterans 
of a score of battles gazed at dawn upon the position they were 
expected to attack, those Second corps soldiers said not a word, 
but each man quietly scribbled his name, company, regiment 
and home address on a scrap of paper, pinned it conspicuously 
on his breast, then picked up his musket ready to attack if need 
be, but well knowing that now it was too late for possibility of 
success. There was something sublime in the calm courage of 
that scene, but a still higher order of courage was demanded of 
their young chief Knowing well that the whole situation in his 
front had changed since his orders to " attack at dawn " were 
written, and that against such an array of batteries and field- 
works direct attack would now be worse than useless — could 
only result in fruitless slaughter — Warren dared to withhold his 
men and to send word to his commander that attack would only 
be disaster. He braved the censure of his chief; the sneers of 
the army ; but he was right, and Meade, a just and honorable 
gentleman, sustained him. Yet from that time there was talk 
of Warren's being " sluggish," and that led on to further com- 
plications, as we shall see. A board of three officers of the 
highest rank, all accomplished soldiers, have lately overruled 
by their opinion, the verdict of a court-martial composed of three 
times their number of officers of equal grade ; the question at 
issue was the conduct of a distinguished predecessor of General 
Warren in command of the Fifth corps ; and the board declares 
that in failing to obey his peremptory orders to attack the flank 
of an unintrenched, and by no means numerically superior, enemy 
in his front, that predecessor was right, because the commanding 



23S FIVE FORKS. 

officer of the army could not have known that certain troops had 
arrived as reinforcement to the enemy. The board declares 
such conduct " soldierly and subordinate." It follows therefore 
that Warren's refusal to lead his men to assault the front instead 
of the flank of an intrenched and expectant, instead of an unpro- 
tected and half-formed enemy, must have been worthy of praise 
beyond all power of words, and, even in the Army of the 
Potomac, his name should be revered. 

However, Mine Run was a bitter disappointment. Nothing 
was accomplished. It seemed as though nothing could be ac- 
complished in that army against those active, skillful veterans of 
Lee. The North was sore at heart; " Hope deferred" too often 
had broken down many a high spirit, and then it was that the 
nation called Grant and Sheridan from the western armies, placed 
the former at the head of affairs military, and virtually told him: 
'' Here — we have been trying to teach general after general how 
CO fight. We are tired of it. Perhaps our ideas are wrong, 
after all. You take the reins and we will stand aside. Now do 
the best you can." 

The whole world knows the story from this on. Heretofore 
the Army of the Potomac after each battle seemed to have to 
stop a while and think. If the South had had the worst of the 
iDattle it took this opportunity of recuperating, and by the time 
the North swooped forward again, Lee was ready, and smote 
her " hip and thigh." There were hundreds of eager officers, 
thousands of gallant men who felt that this was no way to 
achieve success, and when Grant came with his reputation for 
stubborn, persistent, bull-dog fighting, it was a positive relief. 
He seemed to know that in those Virginia fastnesses, against 
those skilled fencers of Lee, manoeuvring was more than apt to 
lead to being out-manoeuvred, and hard, ceaseless, unrelenting 
hammering was the order from this on. From May, 1864, until 
they halted breathless before Petersburg, it was one record of 
bloody, persistent pounding on the part of the Army of the 
Potomac at Lee's superbly handled command of sixty thousand 
veterans, and when at last, after the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, 
North Anna, and the frightful sacrifice of Cold Harbor, Grant's 



MORTALITY AMONG NOTTED OFFICERS. 239 

army reached the James, with Lee still between him and Rich- 
mond, it was found that the gallant Army of Northern Virginia 
had actually whipped its weight in numbers out of the ranks of 
the Union army — that no less than 60,000 men, killed, wounded 
and missing, had been stricken from the rolls of present for duty; 
and still, with his vast resources at his back, that inflexible 
leader, Grant, was as strong as ever. Terrible had been the 
losses on both sides, and in the armies that confronted each 
other at Petersburg many a familiar face and distinguished 
name had disappeared. Noble John Sedgwick of the Sixth 
corps and gray-haired Wadsworth had fought their last battle 
in the Wilderness. Longstreet, Lee's old war-dog, had been 
crippled for life, and "Jeb" Stuart, the cavalier leader of the 
Southern horse, had fallen before Sheridan's troopers at Yellow 
Tavern. These among the most prominent; yet of generals of 
brigades there were dozens, and of field-officers hundreds who 
would never draw sword again. 

The North held its breath in awe at the tidings of fearful 
slaughter, and marvelled at the grim determination of the silent 
man who wrote from Spottsylvania : " I propose to fight it out 
on this line if it takes all summer; " but all had hope that Grant 
would be able to " pulverize " the army of Lee. Once across 
the James it was expected that something brilliant would be 
accomplished in front of Petersburg. Then came the fiasco 
of the mine. Admirably as the whole attack had been planned 
by General Meade, disastrous failure was the result. Luck 
still seemed to side with the Confederacy; but there was 
small wonder that this attack should prove a failure when two 
of its chosen leaders, Ledlie and Ferrero, were found to have 
been skulking in a bomb-proof far at the rear, while their divi- 
sions were fighting their way to the front. Then, winter of '64 
and '65 found the army intrenched, as has been said, in front of 
Petersburg, with no apparent prospect of getting out. Very 
much had been lost, very little had been accomplished, so it 
seemed to the impatient and bleeding hearts at the North, and 
when December came, all was deep despond. " The war is a 
failure," was the cry among the Peace party all that fall. Gold 



240 FIVE Poking. 

had soared up to the nearest figure to 300; and, though the 
South was hving on parched corn, and shivering in tatters, 
though its own cabinet had pronounced it impossible to subsist 
the Army of Northern Virginia through the winter, it was still 
undaunted, still brave, hopeful and determined. 

Then the tide turned. Hood's army was shattered to frag- 
ments at Nashville. Sherman exploded the shell of the Confed- 
eracy, and handed over Savannah as his Christmas present to 
the nation, and '65 was rung in with joy-bells all over the North, 
for now at last there was light ahead and no mistake. Sherman 
came pushing up through the Carolinas. Johnston could not 
hold him back. Nearer and nearer he strode, and now at last — 
at last Lee began to look wistfully, nervously, anxiously to his 
flanks and rear. His men were starving, shivering to death; he 
was surrounded on every side ; he had fought superbly, scientifi- 
cally, grandly ; but — little by little the ground was crumbling 
away beneath his feet. Then Sheridan — that new, meteoric, 
dashing leader who had at last waked up Virginia to a realizing 
sense of what Yankee cavalry could do when properly led — 
whipped his way through the Shenandoah, came trotting down 
the valley of the James, tearing canals, roads and railways into 
ruin as he rode, joined his great leader now reaching around 
the southern limits of the threatened lines, and then, one finger 
at a time, the failing grasp of Lee on his last position began 
to let go; and on the ist of April Sheridan once more had 
shot around the now quivering flank, fought and won the bril- 
liant battle of Five Forks, the real wind-up of the war, and 
leaped like a blood-hound at the throat of the fleeing quarry 
One short, breathless week of unavailing struggle and all was 
over with Lee. 

It was a wonderful week. So accustomed had the North be- 
come to hearing that their armies had been repulsed before the 
strong works of the enemy, that for quite a while people con- 
tinued to shake their heads and say, " Wait a day longer and we 
will hear the old story; " but this time the old story was buried. 
It had been told far too often. To understand the closing strug- 
gle of the war we need a glance at the map, and a brief reference 
to the country in which that struggle was fought. 



SHERIDAN TO THE t^RONT. S41 

Petersburg lies some twenty miles south of Richmond, and on 
the south bank of the Appomattox, the largest tributary of the 
James. One railway connects it with the capital, and then, east, 
south and west, three others branched out from Petersburg, con- 
necting it with Norfolk, Wilmington, and with Lynchburg and 
Danville. The roads to Norfolk and Wilmington had already 
been seized and held by General Grant, though the capture of 
the latter, known as the Weldon railroad, had cost him much 
hard fighting and many lives ; but the most important line of 
all, the South Side railway, connecting Petersburg with Dan- 
ville, Lynchburg, and, through them, with the entire Confed- 
eracy, was still covered and held by General Lee. It was of 
vital importance to him, for it was almost the only line by which 
he could receive the supplies slowly and painfully gathered and 
forwarded by his agents. Petersburg was not provisioned for a 
siege, and, if it had been, its supplies would have been gone long 
ago. Grant could only " invest " it from the south and east, for 
Richmond and Petersburg were connected by strong defensive 
works against which all efforts had been fruitless. Grant had 
made several attempts to break through from the James river 
side, always without success ; and at last he began to see that 
the only way to make Lee let go of Petersburg would be to 
reach around behind him and seize that South Side railway ; 
and to do this he needed Sheridan. It was on the 27th of March 
when that now renowned leader of cavalry reported with his 
command after his long ride from the Shenandoah down the 
James, and, barely giving him twenty-four hours rest, Grant 
pushed his daring lieutenant out upon this new enterprise. 

The Appomattox river runs a general course from west to 
east, except for one deep bend — a circular sweep northward 
about midway between the Court-House where it rises and the 
city near which it joins the James. Cutting across this bend 
like the chord of an arc, the railway runs otherwise nearly 
parallel with the Appomattox from Lynchburg to Petersburg. 
Midway it is crossed by the Richmond railway, running south- 
west to Danville ; and beside this South Side railway there led 
westward and southwe.stward from Petersburg several tolerably 



242 FIVE FORRS. 

well-graded and passable thoroughfares. Two are nearly parallel 
to the railway — the river and the Cox roads, one on each side 
of it generally, though the Cox road occasionally crosses it. 
Then running out southwestward is the Boydton plank road ; 
east of that, and nearly parallel with it, the Vaughan road. Just 
where the Boydton crosses a little stream known as Hatcher's 
Run a branch leaves it in a westerly direction, the White Oak 
road ; and the whole country hereabouts is a net-work of little 
wood-roads and streamlets criss-crossing one another in every 
possible direction. The forests are dense, sometimes nearly 
impenetrable ; tlie ground low and swampy. There were no 
slopes, no heights to speak of; the country from the Weldon 
railway out towards Dinwiddle Court-House on the Boydton 
plank, and Five Forks on the White Oak dirt-road, was just one 
thickly timbered flat, ready to be overflowed far and near should 
a heavy rain come ; and just such a heavy rain did come at the 
very moment when Grant pushed out his columns in their 
attempt to feel their way around the right of Lee's lines and get 
that railroad. 

At this moment the Southern forces were holding a line of 
intrenchments and field-works that virtually reached from 
Hatcher's Run, seven miles southwest of Petersburg, around 
that city to the Appomattox, thence to the James, across the 
James and completely encircling Richmond. The main army 
was posted south of the Appomattox — General A. P. Hill, with 
his old corps, commanding from Hatcher's Run to Fort Gregg 
(which lay about two miles southwest of town), and having the 
Boydton plank road running behind him parallel with his line. 
On Hill's left and extending around to the Appomattox, holding 
all the forts, were Generals Gordon and Anderson, with their 
strong divisions of war-tried veterans ; while in chief command 
of all the lines north of the Appomattox, Longstreet, disabled, 
suffering, even crippled with his wounds, reappeared in the field. 
The length of the line thus held from White Oak Swamp on the 
north to Hatcher's Run on the south is given by General 
Humphreys as thirty-seven miles, and this carries the line out to 
the Claiborne crossing of Hatcher's Run, fully ten miles from 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 243 

the city of Petersburg. The earthworks were heavy and were 
strengthened everywhere by thick slashing and abatis. To 
defend this long, encircling line. General Lee had, all told, some 
57,000 men, but they were admirably commanded, were fighting 
in the defensive, and the nature of the thick and tangled 
country, the scientific planning of their earthworks, gave them 
advantages that were worth more than mere numbers. 

Against them there were mustered on the effective lists of the 
combined armies of the Potomac, the James, and Sheridan's 
cavalry, very nearly 125,000 men; and when General Grant 
began his favorite movement of swinging round the right flank 
of the enemy, he left Generals Parke and Ord with some of the 
Army of the James to hold the works in front of Petersburg, 
and the military line of railway to City Point on the James; 
General Weitzel, with two divisions well up near Richmond at 
Bermuda Hundred; and on the 29th of March, with Sheridan 
leading, and our old friends of the Second and Fifth corps close 
behind, he pushed out boldly through the unknown country to 
the west. It was the beginning of the end, and we want to look 
well at the men who are with him in this, the closing scene of 
the great war. There is no need to speak of the general-in-chief 
in these pages. His is now a national history and a world-wide 
reputation; but of his great lieutenant, that eager, restless, 
daring trooper who is foremost in the final campaign, whole 
volumes might yet be written. By this time the cavalry of the 
army has learned to follow and to fight for Phil Sheridan as it 
never did for mortal man before— even the lamented Buford. 
And the Sixth, Eighth and Nineteenth corps have learned to 
know him well : they fought under him at Winchester, at Cedar 
Creek and Fisher's Hill; and the Sixth corps had come back 
from the Shenandoah full of stories of the way Sheridan sent 
Early whirling up that valley. They would be glad to back him 
up again to-day ; but as luck would have it, the Fifth corps is 
farthest out of all the infantry, and, should he need infantry- 
backing as he doubtless will, these are the men on whom he 
must rely. Sheridan has some 13,000 admirable troopers as his 
own command, and with Merritt at the head of this cavalry 



244 FIVE FORKS. 

corps, and Custer, Devin and Crook as division leaders, his is 
the most complete and independent organization in the army. 
Perhaps there is some little jealousy in the ranks of the hard- 
used Army of the Potomac ; for, while they have been slowly 
groping and struggling or freezing about the lines of Petersburg 
all winter, these gaudy yellow-trimmed horsemen have been 
gayly riding all over Virginia, winning big names for themselves 
(and deserving more than they got at Winchester, for that mat- 
ter), and now here they are again, far in the lead as usual, say 
the plodding infantrymen with the growl that all old soldiers 
must have: " Way out until they strike something: then they 
come back and let us tackle it." Perhaps that tuns the reputa- 
tion of the cavalry up to the time Sheridan took command, 
despite John Buford's superb stand that first day at Gettysburg 
and " Grimes " Davis' brilliant charge and soldierly death at 
Beverly Ford ; but there is no " come back " where Sheridan 
leads, and all preconceived notions on the subject are going to 
have a sudden shock in the Army of the Potomac. Men of the 
Fifth and Second corps were seen curiously watching the long 
column of Sheridan's troopers as they trotted easily around 
from the James to the extreme left over by the Vaughan road, 
and there was a good deal of the " chaff" and " billingsgate " in 
which our soldiers will indulge at such times — a constant inter- 
change of wordy compliments between horse and foot through 
the lowering March day, and though the Sixth corps cheered 
their comrades of the valley campaign, it is probable that not a 
few of Sheridan's men were ruffled by this sort of reception. 
However, there was no time to squabble over it now. They 
might have to show the very " chaffers " how to fight. Who 
could tell what a day might bring forth ? 

Grant's infantry and artillery had been reorganized for the 
new move through this timbered and swampy country. The 
batteries had been cut down to four guns each ; Hancock had 
been called to Washington some time since to organize the new 
First corps, and his old corps, the Second, is now led by Major- 
General Humphreys, who fought so hard the second day at 
Gettysburg. Miles, William Hays and Mott are the divisigr 



"LET US END THIS BUSINESS HERE." 245 

commanders. Alexander Hays was killed before Spottsylvania. 
The Fifth corps is led by General Gouverneur K. Warren, he 
who showed such brain and bravery at Little Round Top, such 
brain and prudence at Mine Run, and who has become con- 
spicuous throughout the army because he will wear his broad 
yellow sash in the hottest action, where it has become the 
fashion to drop all such ornament. The Fifth is still the 
" dandy " corps of the army, and Griffin, Ayres and Crawford 
command its divisions. Major-General Wright heads the Sixth 
corps, with Wheaton, Getty and Seymour as division com- 
manders. General John Q. Parke has the Ninth corps, a com- 
paratively new command, and for that reason, probably, selected 
to remain behind and man the works in front of Petersburef. 

Besides these old troops of the Army of the Potomac there 
came, to swell the ranks of the moving columns. Turner's and 
Foster's divisions of the Twenty-fourth corps, now commanded 
by John Gibbon, whom we have seen rise from the head of the 
Iron Brigade at Second Bull Run to his present high rank, and 
a little division of cavalry from Butler's old army, not 2,000 
strong, but led by a brilliant and brave young soldier — General 
Ranald MacKenzie : and this was the force with which General 
Grant essayed to pin the Southern leader to the wall. 

On March 28th, when all was ready. Grant had summoned 
Sheridan to headquarters and there read to him his instructions, 
winding up by saying to him in his blunt way : " I mean to end 
liiis business here;" and Sheridan's face beamed with enthu- 
siasm and delight. " That's what I like to hear you say," he 
answered. " Let us end this business here." A very few hours 
afterwards, he with the cavalry was crossing Rowanty Creek 
way down to the south, and striking out 'cross country for 
Dinwiddle Court-House ; while Warren and Humphreys were 
pushing across the stream or rather its upper fork, Hatcher's 
Run, miles to the north of him. Sheridan was to make a wide 
sweep, and the whole idea of the movement was to induce Lee 
to come out from behind his works and fight in the open. 

The President himself had come down to City Point to see 
Grant and his officers before the final start, and to wish them 



246 



FIVE FORKS. 



God-speed. None of the part)- — and his own son, then Captain 
Lincohi of the general's staff, was one — can ever forget that 
parting. It was the noble-hearted Lincoln's last look at his 
fighting soldiers — two weeks more and cowardly assassination 
had laid him low. He stood on the rude platform of the rail- 
way station as the train bore the general and his staff away, 
gazing hopefully, yet wistfully, after them. God alone knows 
the weight of care, anxiety, agony, that patient and loyal soul 
had undergone during the four long years of the war — a suffering 
from which the martyrdom of his death would have been re- 
lease had it come before, but it came, a ten-fold martyrdom, to 
rob him of all earthly fruition of his dreams of ultimate success, 
yet in robbing him of this earthly triumph, to replace it by an 
eternity of reward a thousand times more glorious. " God bless 
you all," he had said, and with this parting benediction they had 
hastened forth to their appointed task. Another hour and they 
were in saddle at the left. 

That night Sheridan was bivouacking around Dinwiddle, 
Warren and Humphreys among the thickets across Hatcher's 
Run, and then it was that it came on to rain in soaking torrents. 
Morning of the 30th found the whole country one vast quag- 
mire, and a general feeling of depression seemed to have settled 
down on the army struggling through the mud along Gravelly 
Run. Horses floundered up to their girths, wheels sank to their 
hubs in the quicksands in front of the tents where the general 
himself had stopped for the night. The 30th was a gloomy 
day. Even among his own staff-officers, it is said that there 
were some who urged the silent commander to give it up and 
go back ; and, in the Army of the Potomac, if Badeau can be 
cited as authorit}', " Meade was not sanguine and said little; but 
others strongly urged a retrograde movement." Evidently there 
was little heart in the move in such vile weather, but Grant was 
inflexible. If he could not burst through an enemy's line, he at 
least had found means to get around. Go back was the one thing 
he never yet had done, and even his own army could not force 
him to go back now. Yet he would have given much, or have 
been less than man, for some cheery, hopeful, buoyant spirit to 



1 



SHERIDAN'S MAGNETIC SPIRIT. 249 

stand by him in this atmosphere of general gloom ; and it came 
— came like a burst of sunshine when Sheridan, " all mud and 
pluck," rode into the midst of the dripping group around the 
camp-fire at headquarters to report progress at Dinwiddie, and 
to almost beg for orders to push ahead. With Sheridan in such 
a mood, there was an end to all hint of failure, and in half an hour 
the vehement, sturdy little trooper was spurring back through 
mud and rain with the coveted instructions to strike northward for 
Five Forks. Could he gain it in time, before Lee could seize, 
intrench and hold it ? It lay so near the South Side railway — 
not more than three miles — that if lost to Lee the road would 
go — and with it, his last hold on Petersburg. 

As early as the 28th, General Lee had learned that Sheridan's 
cavalry was being transferred way around Petersburg to the 
extreme left of Grant's lines. He knew at once what that must 
mean — a blow at the South Side road from that quarter. The 
first undefended track along which the blow might come was 
the Ford road from Five Forks. Anderson's men were already 
moving over to the west to man the works across the Claiborne 
road to Sutherland Station, but some one must make a leap for 
Five Forks, and the choice fell on Fitz Hugh Lee, who had 
been far over towards the Chickahominy swamps. He and his 
cavalry division rode like mad all day of the 29th, reached 
Sutherlands that night, sprang upon Five Forks the next morn- 
ing, and, that afternoon, March 30th, he and Merritt had grap- 
pled along the Dinwiddie road, and Sheridan's impetuous ad- 
vance was stemmed. At this moment there were at least five 
miles of mud and quicksand between Warren's left and the near- 
est flank of Sheridan's adventurous horsemen. Guns and wagons 
were stalled and could not budge an inch until the roads were 
corduroyed. What if Lee should push still farther, thrust other 
cavalry through that five mile gap, cross infantry by the White 
Oak road to Five Forks, and hem Sheridan in at Dinwiddie ? 
It was practicable. It could be done, and then the vaunted hero 
of the Shenandoah would be at their mercy, and Grant's eyes, 
yes, and his right arm, gone. Full information 'had reached the 
Southern general of the situation by this time, and he strained 



250 FIVE FORKS. 

every nerve to meet the emergency. By sunset on the 30th, 
Rosser and W. H. F. Lee had reinforced Fitz Lee's division 
south of Five Forks, and Pickett, he of the heroic assault at 
Gettysburg, with five brigades of veteran infantry, was pitching 
up earthworks along the White Oak road from Five Forks east- 
ward. Eighteen thousand men had been launched out to 
"gobble," as the saying went in those days, Sheridan and his 
13,000. 

Late on the night of the 30th, Grant determined, on learning 
how Lee had weakened his lines at Petersburg, that the time 
had come to assault the works around the town, and far to the 
south of it. At this moment Parke, with the Ninth corps, cov- 
ered the front to the east ; Wright, with the Sixth corps, from 
Parke's left, well out to the southwest ; then came Ord's men, 
from the Army of the James, confronting the lines five and six 
miles southwest of the town ; then Humphrey's Second corps, 
stretching across country near Hatcher's Run and almost to the 
-Boydton plank road; while close on his left was the Fifth corps 
under Warren, covering the plank road and picketing the coun- 
try to the crossing of the Claiborne and White Oak roads. Then 
came that five mile gap to Sheridan, off southwestward in the 
woods above Dinwiddie, and both Sheridan's right and War- 
ren's left flanks were in jeopardy. 

That night too. Grant from his headquarters near Gravelly 
Run wrote to Sheridan that he would detach the whole Fifth 
corps and send it to him on the following day if he thought 
that by aid of it, and acting independently of the rest of the 
army, he could swing round the right flank of Lee's army and 
so hem them in ; and Sheridan's reply came on the morning of 
the 31st He was willing — eager to try it. with the Sixth corps. 
They knew him and he them, but, he shook his head at men- 
tion of the Fifth corps. They could and would fight superbly 
for men they knew and liked, but somehow or other that Fifth 
corps seemed to want to know too nmch about what some other 
corps was to do while they were doing this and that, and Sheri- 
dan had possibly heard that Fifth corps commanders had before 
now been singularly liberal in their interpretation of orders 



DISTRUST OF WARREN. 2^1 

coming from superiors who had learned obedience in the west. 
He had never led the Fifth corps. He only knew Warren from 
what had been said- of him, and some vague talk around the 
camp-fire, and as bad luck would have it, he had been preju- 
diced against as brave and cool and scientific a fighter as the 
army possessed, far too cool and deliberate as a mate, to pull 
with fiery, magnetic, all-daring Sheridan. 

But his old standby, the Sixth corps, was far over to the right 
in front of Petersburg. Warren alone was available ; and War- 
ren it was who finally received the orders to support Sheridan at 
Dinwiddle, and act under his orders ; but meantime grave 
changes came. Early on the 31st Lee's men rushed into the 
gap ; doubled Warren up like a pocket-rule ; sent Ayres and 
Crawford reeling back on Griffin, and if Miles, of the Second 
corps, had not come to the rescue when he did, might have driven 
him still farther. The subsequent rally and advance was fine, 
but the 31st of March cost the Fifth corps nearly 1,500 men, 
and its chief a vast amount of severe criticism, which added to 
the impression at three headquarters — Grant's, Meade's and Sheri- 
dan's — that, with all his acknowledged ability and personal 
courage, Warren was not the man for this place. All day long 
in mud and mist his men v/ere fighting, marching and meeting 
or making charges, and night found them worn out, and their 
leader somewhat dejected. This was their condition when, at 
eleven o'clock at night, Warren received his orders to march 
Griffin down the Boydton road, and move with his whole corps 
to strike in rear the enemy then enveloping Sheridan. " Urge 
him not to stop for anything," said Grant to Meade, for all day 
long Sheridan had been fighting like a tiger between Five Forks 
and Dinwiddle. Merritt and Custer, Devin and Crook had been 
furiously attacked by Lee, Rosser and Pickett's advanced in- 
fantry, and step by step they had been driven back toward the 
old Virginia country court-house. Merritt at one time had been 
well-nigh cut off, but had most skillfully withdrawn his men to 
the Boydton road, drawing the yelling Southerners in a sweeping 
left wheel after him, and got back safely to Sheridan, while that 
indomitable leader launched in the brigades of Gibbes and Gregg 



252 FIVE FORKS. 

on the flank presented by the pursuing enemy, brought them to 
bay, and caused them to turn once more on him at Dinvviddie, 
while Merritt trotted back by way of the Boydton plank, and 
once more deployed on the general line. All day long Sheri- 
dan's generalship had been brilliant, his fighting most gallant. 
Dinwiddie was held ; and now as night came down and the 
cavalry — Northern and Southern — bixouacked in the woods not 
a hundred yards apart, the question was : " How soon can War- 
ren come down and pitch into the enemy's rear? " for at night- 
fall the lines of Lee lay between Sheridan and the Army of the 
Potomac. 

Counting on his coming, believing that by three a. m. at the 
latest Warren would be there in force behind the enemy, Sheri- 
dan felt confident that at early dawn he could fall upon and de- 
stroy the Southern force. "Attack at day-break" were his 
orders, and the men crammed their pouches and pockets with 
fresh cartridges, and eagerly awaited the coming day. Notified 
by General Grant of Warren's instructions to join him at once, 
he listened with impatient ear for the rattle of his musketry as 
the 1st of April dawned damp and chill ; but he listened in vain. 
Warren was still at the other end of that five mile gap. He had 
roused Ayres and his men, it is true, sent them instead of Griffin 
down the Boydton road ; but the bridge was gone at Gravelly 
Run, and not until two a. m. could it be replaced ; his men were 
greatly fatigued ; he feared that his withdrawal in the darkness 
would bring the vigilant lines of the enemy in rapid pursuit, and 
he hung on where he was until five in the morning. Not until 
eleven a. m. did he report in person to Sheridan, now fuming 
with exasperation and disappointment, for it was too late. Warned 
of Warren's tardy coming the Southern leaders had promptly 
slipped out of the trap, passed westward across Sheridan's front, 
and as the latter sprang forward to tiie attack, faced him and 
fell back, skillfully fighting towards the intrenchments at Five 
Forks, closely followed by Merritt and his charging squadrons. 
The chance was gone. Noon came, and Pickett's men were 
in strong position behind their earthworks along the White Oak 
road. 



iPlCtCETT BEHIND HIS IMTREXCHMENTS. 253 

But Sheridan would not give it up. One chance was gone 
to be sure, but there was still time to fight and win a battle. 
New dispositions, new plans had to be made at once ; but gal- 
loping hither and thither over the field, the very epitome of 
soldierly dash and daring, he quickly discovered that Pickett's 
earthworks came to an abrupt end a mile east of Five P'orks and 
turned back at a right-angle to the north. From this angle or 
salient eastward along the White Oak road there was a stretch 
of four miles of undefended ground. Calling up MacKenzie and 
his eighteen hundred troopers, he hurried him out eastward at a 
rapid trot; told him to hold that road against all comers until 
he could bring up the Fifth corps, and having thus headed off 
any reinforcements that might be coming from Lee to Pickett, 
he set to work to entrap the latter in his stronghold at the 
Forks. 

Facing southward, Pickett held about two miles of newly- 
built earthworks, with Five Forks in the middle. Ordering 
Merritt to deploy all his cavalry along this front, and to make a 
vigorous feint as though striving to turn the right or western 
flank of Pickett's line, Sheridan hastened to his own right and 
ordered Warren to bring up the Fifth corps with all possible 
speed. He meant to repeat the old Winchester move, as.sault 
along the front, but to hurl Warren's whole corps against that 
salient — the eastern angle of Pickett's line — and by a gradual 
wheel to the left of the three infantry divisions, to double up the 
Southern line and literally smash it. If Pickett escaped at all 
from between the enveloping corps of Warren and Merritt, it 
could only be to the westward, away from Lee, away from help 
or support of any kind. But time was everything. The short 
spring day would soon be over, and that chance too would then 
be gone forever. Splendidly the cavalry carried out their part 
of the game. MacKenzie, far over to the east, gave a sound 
drubbing to the advance guard of the reinforcements coming 
from Lee. Merritt, dismounting his troopers in front of the 
works, formed his long lines in readiness for attack, while the 
led horses, the fluttering guidons and the reserves stood well 
back among the trees, but ready to leap forward after their regi- 



254 FIVE FORKS. 

ments. Far over to the west, yellow-haired Custer with tw^ 
brigades in the saddle, and Pennington's men afoot, made the 
dashing charge which was to be the feint upon Pickett's right; 
but here, W. H. F. Lee met him with horsemen as enthusiastic as 
his own, and these two had a rattling cavalry fight all to them- 
selves, while other and graver matters were going on at the right. 
Oddly enough Pickett and Fitz Hugh Lee were far behind their 
lines at the time, holding some consultation in the thick woods 
north of Hatcher's Run. Accustomed only to the kind of fight- 
ing they had seen in V^irginia for three years past, they probably 
imagined that, as usual, the Yanks would stop when the)- came 
to those earthworks ; but they did not know Sheridan. At two 
o'clock he and Warren were talking over the plan of attack to- 
gether, and that interview has become historic. 

The Fifth corps was only some two miles and a half away at 
the time Warren was ordered to hurry it to the front. It was 
then just one o'clock. The roads were heavy with mud, the 
men so tired that at eveiy halt some of their number would 
throw themselves by the roadside, be sound asleep in an instant 
and almost dead to any sunmions to be up and moving. Still, 
in his eager enthusiasm, Sheridan countcfl on their coming in 
an hour, or an hour and a half at the utmost. Every now and 
then, as he strode nervously up and down under the trees, 
where he and his staff had dismounted, his fiery eyes would 
glance toward the western skies where, through the low hang- 
ing clouds, the sun was fast sinking towards the horizon. Then 
he would halt short and address some words to Warren. The 
latter had made a rough sketch of the proposed attack, showing 
the position of the Southern force along the White Oak road ," 
the lines of Merritt and Custer and Devin ; the very fields into 
which his own divisions were to be turned on coming to the 
spot. He was carefully studying the situation, calm, placid, 
methodical ; a calm that, to Sheridan's restless impatience, sav- 
ored of apathy, a method that seemed to be a critical analysis 
of his superior's orders under his superior's very eyes. Still no 
signs came of the longed-for infantry. Again and again Sheri- 
dan glared down the Dinwiddie road in search of the sloping 



SHERIDAN AND WARREN CONTRASTE 255 

rifle-barrels, and the more impatient he grew, the more imper- 
turbably placid seemed Warren. Just or unjust, Sheridan could 
only estimate such conduct from one standpoint. He had, from 
the very start, been accustomed to handling men whose natures 
seemed to leap into instant and eager life at the kindling con- 
tact of his own. His old Michigan cavalry regiment ; his little 
brigade in the Army of the Cumberland ; his fighting divisions 
at Stone River and Chattanooga ; then his brilliant cavalry corps 
in the Army of the Potomac, and the sedate infantry of the Sixth 
and Nineteenth corps, all, all had seemed to become imbued 
with his vehement dash and daring. Men who had fought and 
marched with Sheridan had learned to jump when he spoke ; 
he loved to see snap, life, vim in officer or man; he could not 
tolerate a laggard. Never yet had he met a subordinate whom 
he could not inspire ; but now here was Warren — Warren, whom 
he had been taught to look upon as slow ; Warren, who repre- 
sented the manoeuvring engineer element among our generals, 
as opposed to the hard-hitting, practical fighters of the line; 
Warren, whose men had been fattening and getting " soft," per- 
haps timid, behind bomb-proofs and earthworks all winter, while 
his cavalry-men were doing rough, lusty work in the saddle and 
the open field. Sheridan simply could not understand Warren, 
What the latter's warmest friends considered evidences of " in- 
tense concentration," looked, it must be confessed, vastly like 
apathy to soldiers such as Sheridan, who had never seen him 
light up under fire. Three o'clock came, still the Fifth corps 
was not up, and then it was that in his fuming impatience Sheri- 
dan gave way to the impression — a most natural and justifiable 
impression after all the disappointments of the day — " that he 
(Warren) wished the sun to go down before dispositions for at- 
tack could be completed." When at last the Fifth corps was 
placed in position, facing northwest toward that gloomy salient 
on the White Oak road, four o'clock had come, and Warren 
rode into the attack heavily handicapped with his superior's 
strongly-rooted distrust. 

But of this he knew little or nothing. Intent in his own way 
on carrying out his orders, and recognizing with a soldier's eye 



256 FIVE FORKS. 

th« brilliancy of Sheridan's battle-plan, he hastened to the right 
of the road on which lay the Gravelly Run Church, where Craw- 
ford's division in two lines, with a brigade in reserve, had taken 
its post, moved Griffin's splendid division in support of Craw- 
ford, and awaited the signal to advance. Ayres' division, the 
last to arrive, and the smallest of the three, took post between 
the Gravelly Run Church road and that leading from Five 
Forks to Dinwiddle, nearly joining hands with Devin's cavalry- 
men on the left, and facing northwest like the rest of the corps. 
Then, at last, all was ready and advance was the word. Leav- 
ing the cavalry to take care of themselves, Sheridan galloped 
out in front of Ayres' division, he and his staff riding rapidly 
along between the skirmish and the main lines. That red and 
white swallow-tail flag was a new sight to those Fifth corps fel- 
lows, and they looked upon Sheridan's standard-bearer with 
live curiosity. " I will ride with you," said Sheridan to Ayres ; 
and with that, under the sputtering skirmish-fire to the front, the 
division burst forward, while Warren and the greater portion of 
his corps pushed ahead through the tangled woods, expecting 
every instant to be met by the volleys from the Southern lines. 
In ten minutes the skirmishers were leaping across the White 
Oak road under the vigorous peppering of the opposing light 
troops, who fell back slowly before the coming host until close 
under the muzzles of the main lines, when, with sudden rally 
and rush, they disappeared entirely from Ayres' front. The 
next instant, as the long blue ranks with waving colors and 
steady fronts swept forward across the open road, there came 
from the left and left front, a sudden flash and thunder-clap, fol- 
lowed by the rattle and ring of a thousand muskets. In one 
moment the sparse woods kaped with flame and the leaves came 
fluttering down from overhead swept by the storm of hissing 
bullets. It was a savage reception ; many a gallant fellow was 
laid low by the sudden storm ; but Ayres was a staunch fighter, 
and, instantly divining that he had found the point where the 
earthworks turned back to the north, and that the fire came 
from that face, he ordered his two brigades to wheel at once to 
the left, and sent word to his supporting line, under gallant Fred 



AYRES CAPTURES A XVHOLK BRIGADE. 257 

Winthrop, to come forward into line on his left at double-quick. 
It was promptly, splendidly done ; but the Third brijgjade 
(Gwyn's), on the extreme right, had to fight its way through 
some thick undergrowth to the open plain beyond. They 
plunged through in some disorder, but kept going until reach « 
ing the edge of the thicket and the skirt of the woods ; here 
greeted by a sharp and sudden volley, and being much broker 
by their " bushwhacking," the whole brigade reeled and stag 
gered. It was a critical moment. It would never do to let them 
go back ; Warren, with Crawford and Griffin, was still shoving 
ahead through the woods, somewhere off to the right, but out 
of sight now, and a great gap was forming between Ayres' right 
and Crawford's left. Not an instant could be lost. Staff-offi- 
cers struck spurs to their horses and dashed off into the woods 
to turn Crawford to the left. Gwyn needed their support ; but 
as Gwyn's men still clung timidly to their cover and huddled to- 
gether among the trees, Sheridan could stand it no longer. 
Seizing the battle-flag he leaped out to the front, shouting to the 
amazed infantrymen to " Come on." Somewhere back of the 
line a Yankee band struck up a rollicking Irish air ; others 
chimed in with the first tune that happened to strike the leader's 
fancy ; Ayres and his staff rushed forward to aid Sheridan as 
that fiery little rider rode storming, and swearing, and cheering 
along the lines, heedless of the hissing lead that tore through the 
silk of his precious standard, or struck down officers of his eager 
staff. 

The example was all they needed. Up sprang Ayres' men, 
now all delight with this new and magnetic leader, and with 
mighty rush and cheer they swarmed at, and over the fire-flash- 
ing parapet, grappling with the gunners, seizing battle-flags and 
guns, and capturing an entire brigade. It was barely five 
o'clock when they struck the salient, and in twenty minutes 
Ayres had carried all before him, had faced westward, and, 
hastily securing his prisoners, was preparing to roll up Pickett's 
)ine along the White Oak road. But already the losses had 
been severe ; and of these, none so lamentable as that of the bril- 
liant young general who led his brigade to the support of the left 



258 FIVE FORKS. 

©f the staggered line — brave Fred Winthrop ! It was said of him 
that only the night before he wrote a prophetic farewell to the 
woman he loved and who was so soon to have been his bride ; 
and yet, believing firmly that he was not to survive that fight, 
he rode into action all spirit, energy, enthusiasm, " the best- 
dressed man on the field," says Colonel Newhall, and fell dead 
at the head of his charging, cheering brigade at the very instant 
of glorious victory. 

Edging off to the right, as though to escape that fire fronj the 
earthworks, Crawford had contrived to get too far away to be 
available at this juncture, and Griffin, moving as his support, 
followed his tracks until the rage of battle on his left, the vehe- 
ment cheers of Ayres' men, the wolf-like yell of the defiant 
Southerners, and the crash of volleys told him that it was there 
he was most needed ; and even as he was wheeling to the left 
Sheridan's aides came tearing through the woods to order the 
move. Brother artillerists were Ayres and Griffin in the old days 
before the war, and now almost at full run the latter " changed 
front forward " in rapid wheel to the left, and \came crashing 
through the brake and thickets on the right of his comrade in 
arms, and not too late ; for, as his lines straightened out and 
swung round until they faced southwestward before the eager 
"forward" rang along from battalion to battalion, they came 
upon a confused throng of gray-clad infantry drifting back 
through the woods from the now raging battle front, and, leap- 
ing upon them, added fifteen hundred prisoners to the swarm 
already being disarmed by Ayres. 

Meantime there had been a glorious scene to the west. No 
sooner did Merritt hear the crash of musketry and the thunder 
of guns over to the right, than he gave the long-awaited order 
to attack along the whole line, and, while the F'ifth corps pushed 
through open fields or unresisting forest, Merritt's cavalrymen 
unslung carbines and sprang forward to the assault of the line 
of earthworks. Theirs was the brunt of the battle, for the at- 
tack of parapets lined by infantry is no bagatelle at any time, 
and for horsemen, turned for the nonce into foot-soldiers, it is 
especially trying. With strong skirmish lines, and inspired by 



PICKETT'S LEFT AND CENTRE ROUTED. 259 

the music of cheers, volleys and martial bands over at the right, 
and the ringing, stirring signal calls of their own trumpets, the 
cavalry corps made its spirited advance. Superb leaders had 
they — men who rode with the foremost skirmishers, and whose 
flashing sabres pointed the way : whose joyous voices cheered 
on every charge. Deviii, Fitzhugh and Gibbes on the right ; 
Custer, Pennington and Capehart on the left, while Merritt 
from the centre, directed every move and vigilantly watched the 
changing phases of the battle. Far off to the left, Custer had 
two brigades still in saddle, and with these led charge after 
charge on the Southern cavalry west of the intrenchments, but 
all the rest of the line fought dismounted in front of the parapets, 
and this was trying work. At first but little headway could be 
gained, for the infantry defenders made the air hum with bullets 
and the entire front was a " dead-line," but as Ay res' men came 
tumbling over the lines along the " return," and Griffin's volleys 
crashed through the woods behind them, the gray brigades along 
the White Oak road began to slacken the vigor of their fire. 
Seeing this, Fitzhugh, of Devin's division, called on his brigade 
and in a gallant charge dashed over the parapets in his front, 
capturing three guns and a thousand prisoners with their battle- 
flags. Pickett's left was now gone. One brigade, Mayo's, was 
retiring in fair order through Five Forks, but others were caught 
between the sweeping lines of Warren and Merritt, just as 
Sheridan had planned, and all was up with them. Crawford 
by this time had been caught and turned to the left by Warren, 
whose divisions and brigades were so hidden in the densely 
wooded country that it was impossible to see more than one or 
two at a time. He himself had sent Grififin orders not to follow 
Crawford, but to turn to the aid of Ayres, and then had plunged 
on after his most distant division. MacKenzie too had come 
trotting back by this time, and, forming out on Crawford's right 
and swinging westward with him in a wide sweep that carried 
him far over Hatcher's Run, Warren leading and direct- 
ing, they had now reached the rear of Pickett's lines, seized 
the Ford road and were pressing on, picking up prisoners by 
the hundred. Griffin had found a strong brigade posted to face 



260 FIVE FORKS. 

him, and had had a stubborn struggle of half an hour before 
they broke, but now, now as sunset came, everywhere along the 
left and centre of his lines Pickett saw only rout and disaster — 
he himself had almost had to fight his way through Mac- 
Kenzie's and Crawford's skirmishers before he could reach the 
field. 

All this time Warren had been most energetic, riding to and 
fro — first with one, then with another division; but never, as luck 
would have it, being seen by Sheridan. The latter was still 
aflame at the thought that he himself had had to rally and lead 
the Fifth corps, and that his staff officers could not find Warren. 
Crawford's long detour had delayed matters, and darkness was 
coming on. No half-way victory would satisfy Sheridan. He 
aimed to destroy Pickett entirely, and his plans, if promptly 
executed, meant destruction. It seemed an interminable time 
to him after Ayres seized the works and prepared to sweep west- 
ward before he heard Griffin coming in from the northeast. It 
seemed as though he never would hear Crawford. At last came 
the glad chorus of cheers from behind the Five Forks woods, 
and then, as the entire army leaped forward to " wind the thing 
up," then and there, he had his first news of Warren's personal 
movements and sent his indignant and wrathful reply. 

Custer and Devin were now sweeping over the parapets along 
the whole line, and Pickett himself, striving to rally his centre, 
was suddenly pounced upon by a brawny cavalryman astride of 
a mule, who leaped the earthworks and with conventional sol- 
dierly blasphemy demanded his surrender; Pickett barely escaped 
with his life. Still his right hung pluckily together. Craw- 
ford's division, once more led by Warren himself, was far around 
behind Five Forks at this moment ; had captured a four-gun 
battery and was still pressing on. Here, near an open plat, 
called the Gilliam field, Pickett's men were making their last 
stand, and as Crawford's division emerged from the woods 
greeted them with a scathing fire. The men were in loose order 
after long pursuit and 'cross country fighting, and were halted 
and a little staggered by the discharge, but it was no time to 
delay them, and even as Sheridan had done in front of Ayres, 



• WARREN'S DECISIVE CHARGE. 26l 

Warren, corps-flag in hand, sprang into the front of Crawforcfs 
men, officers and color-bearers dashed forward, and though the 
hot fire swept down Warren's horse and his own orderly, and 
wounded officers immediately around him, the gallant leader 
himself was unhurt — the last of Pickett's lines was swept away, 
and Custer's brilliant division of cavalry thundering up from the 
south sent the fugitives whirling into the woods along the road 
to the west, and Five Forks was over and done with. 

It was even at this moment of almost breathless triumph that 
Warren received the order relieving him from the command of 
the Fifth corps, and ordering him to report in person to the 
general of the army — the saddest feature of this most brilliant 
and gallant day. Prejudiced, in all probability, by what he had 
heard of him, exasperated by the delays of the previous night 
and the apparent apathy of the present day, virtually invited that 
very day by the lieutenant-general to send him back and put 
some other man in his place, and, finally, unable to see or to 
hear of him during the danger and daring and heat of the battle, 
Sheridan had at last lost all patience ; had availed himself of the 
authority expressly conferred on him by General Grant ; had 
placed Griffin in command of the Fifth corps, and sent Warren 
to the rear. Years afterwards, when Warren finally succeeded 
in having a thorough investigation of the whole matter by a 
court composed of just and distinguished officers, it was deter- 
mined that his conduct during the battle was all that it should 
have been, and that there was no unnecessary delay in bringing 
up his corps that afternoon ; but it was held at the same time, 
that Warren was culpable in not coming sooner to Sheridan at 
Dinwiddie on the morning of the ist of April, and as Sheridan 
began to judge him then, could only see during the day what 
looked like apathy or lack of energy, and did not see any of his 
superb conduct during the battle itself, there is little need of 
wonderment at his strenuous action. It was simply in keeping 
with his vehement, uncompromising nature, and had there been 
a Sheridan in the Army of the Potomac earlier in the war, there 
would have been fewer Bull and other Runs. 

Five Forks was the one brilliant tactical battle fousfht and won 



262 PlVE PORKS. 

by the aid of the Army of the Potomac, and it was all planned, 
fought and won inside of eight hours. Morally and materially 
its results were most important. One-third of Lee's army was 
knocked into splinters ; 4,500 prisoners, thirteen colors and six 
guns fell into the hands of the victors, and the fragments of 
Pickett's army were pursued till dark and scattered over the 
Virginia woods in sore dismay and suffering — clothing in 
tatters — food they had none. One only marvels that they fought 
so well. Aided by troops hurried out along the South Side 
railway, Pickett managed to rally some few thousands of his 
men north of Hatcher's Run by the following day; but that 
night Sheridan's troopers and the worn-out Fifth corps biv- 
ouacked around Five Forks, while couriers pushed off through 
darkness, mud and mire to find General Grant waiting eagerly 
at Dabney's Mills for tidings from his trusted right-hand man, 
that he might transmit them to the President, still more 
anxiously waiting at City Point. 

Badeau well describes the scene at Grant's headquarters that 
glorious night. All day long they had been intently listening. 
Three of Grant's aides-de-camp had ridden over at different 
hours to find Sheridan near the Forks, but when nightfall came, 
only one had returned, and he brought tidings of sharp, 
stubborn fighting. The rain had at lasted ceased, and, two 
hours after dark, the general-in-chief was seated by the camp-fire 
in front of his tent " wrapped in the blue overcoat of a private 
soldier." At 7.45 he had sent word to the President that Sheri- 
dan must have had a severe fight, and that he hoped to send 
particulars in a short time. Suddenly there came the sound of 
distant cheering. Far off in the dark wood-roads the soldiers 
were taking up and eagerly repeating the brief words of an 
officer who was hurrying along towards headquarters: presently 
he appeared, and before dismounting had told the gist of his 
story. " The rebs were whipped this time," but he had left the 
field when victory was assured, and could not tell how decisive 
it had been. Soon, however, there came the third and last 
aide-de-camp — Colonel Horace Porter, the most impassive and 
taciturn of men under ordinary circumstances, a man vigorously 



SttERIDAN EVERYWHERE VICTORIOUS. 263 

temperate in his meats and drinks, and the model generally of 
all soldierly reticence and virtues ; but now, to the scandal of 
some of his associates, Porter seemed absolutely drunk. He 
sprang from his horse, wild with delight and enthusiasm, and in 
detailing the results of Sheridan's glorious victory, in the fulness 
of his joy and congratulations he had the hardihood to slap the 
gencral-in-chief on the back, and comport himself otherwise in 
a most unusual manner. It was one of the comical features of 
the campaign. Nobody had ever seen Porter so worked up 
before; but Grant, it is assumed, readily forgave this ebullition of 
spirits. The colonel had not tasted a drop of stimulant: he 
was simply " drunk with victory." He brought complete 
tidings. The utter rout of Pickett and his men had been ac- 
complished with comparatively small loss to the Fifth corps (634 
killed, wounded and missing), and though the cavalry had lost 
heavily in officers, its aggregate was not greater than that of the 
infantry, and only 8,000 cavalry had been engaged. " Sheridan 
has carried everything before him," telegraphed Grant to the 
President at City Point ; and then stepping for a moment inside 
his tent he reappeared with a written order, quietly saying, " I 
have ordered an immediate assault along the lines." 

That was a wonderful night in the Army of the Potomac. 
From left to right; from Hatcher's Run far around to and 
across the James, the soldiers poured forth from bivouac, tent or 
bomb-proof madly cheering over the glorious news ; the bands 
were brought out and kept playing by the hour ; and then, long 
before midnight, the loud-mouthed cannon belched forth in 
furious bombardment. At four in the morning a general ad- 
vance was to begin, and meantime. Miles, of the Second corps, 
pushed down the White Oak road to strengthen Sheridan should 
Lee send a heavy force against him. To all his corps com- 
manders Meade sent the particulars of Sheridan's victory, and 
their replies to the orders for attack were full of hope and 
spirit. Ord wrote to Grant that his men would go into the 
works like "a hot knife into melted butter." Wright promised 
"to make the fur fly" on part of the Sixth corps; and at five 
o'clock on the morning of the 2d of April the Grand Army of 
15 



264 ^IVE FORKS, 

the Union was pushed into the final assault of the Ikies of 
Petersburg. 

But Lee fought to the last. He was not yet ready to give up 
his position, for he was the only defence of the Southern capital 
and cabinet. He still had some 40,000 men, and they were 
snugly ensconced behind their earthworks. Wright did indeed 
" make the fur fly" and burst through the lines, as was to be 
expected of him and the old Sixth corps, but Parke found the 
main line still defiantly strong, and his men could make but 
little headway. He carried some outer works, but lost severely 
in officers, while Wright, though losing 1,100 men in fifteen 
minutes, swept everything in his front, and in the headlong im- 
petuosity of their attack, some of the Sixth corps, after bursting 
through the intrenchments just southwest of Fort Gregg, plunged 
on across the Boydton plank road and never stopped until they 
reached the South Side railway, which they began to pull up at 
once. It was at this time that one of the most gallant and dis- 
tinguished of the Southern generals met his fate: Ambrose P. 
Hill, who had so brilliantly handled his corps during the last 
two years of the war, was shot dead by a Sixth corps soldier 
whom the general had come upon suddenly in the woods and 
ordered to surrender. Once through the lines, Wright had 
wheeled westward and southward, swept up the defenders as far 
as Hatcher's Run; then the Sixth and Twenty-fourth corps faced 
about, and marching back towards Petersburg enveloped the 
city on the south and west. Lee could now only escape by the 
north bank of the Appomattox, and that very day, April 2d, he 
sent word to Mr. Jefferson Davis that he could no longer hold 
Petersburg. He would strive to carry his army back to Dan- 
ville, and there renew the fight. 

Sunday morning, and the pious people of Richmond were 
listening to the gospel of peace in their churches, while the boom 
of the distant bombardment fell sullenly upon the ear of the 
sentries at the fortifications ; while only twenty miles away, in 
most gallant, desperate battle, fathers, husbands, brothers, sons 
were fiercely striving to hold their last bulwarks against the 
savage attack of the Twenty-fourth corps. Forts Gregg an4 



FLIGHT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 565 

Whitworth fell before overpowering numbers even as the church 
bells summoned the worshippers to morning service in the all 
unconscious capital. It was a mild spring morning, soft, balmy, 
sweet with the odor of early buds and blossoms. Hearts were 
beating high with hope in Richmond, for the news had gone 
abroad that Pickett and Fitz Hugh Lee had terribly punished 
the vandal Sheridan down back of Petersburg the evening before. 
Mr. Davis sat in his accustomed pew, while his devoted and 
long-suffering people sent up their heartfelt prayers for Divine 
blessing upon him, and the cause he represented — the cause 
they firmly believed to be as righteous and just as was the cause 
of the colonies in '76. Suddenly, through the open doorway, 
there came a messenger who strode up the aisle, handed one 
paper to the head of the Confederate government, and sent 
another to the officiating clergyman. Mr. Davis opened and 
read his letter; then quickly rose and left the church. People 
wondered, but said no word. Then the minister in as calm a 
voice as he could command, announced that the local forces 
were ordered to assemble, and that no afternoon service would 
be held. With that the congregation dispersed, yet seemed to 
have no idea of the impending disaster. That evening, however, 
Davis, his cabinet and the legislature fled by railway and canal. 
Ewell withdrew his garrison, setting fire to warehouses, bridges 
and stores as he was ordered, and, leaving not a man to guard 
the thousands of helpless women and children, leaving the sick and 
wounded, turning the city over to the mercy of a mob of escaped 
convicts, drunken desperadoes or half-starved laborers. Taking all 
the plunder they could conveniently carry, the great leaders of a 
brave and deluded people sought their own safety without so 
much as an act of protection, a word of farewell or advice for 
those who had trusted and followed them to the bitter end. Of 
Mr. Davis' subsequent adventures, his ignominious flight and 
undignified masquerade, his capture, imprisonment and final 
release, far more has been written than the subject really de- 
serves. After pondering a while as to what punishment might 
most suitably be inflicted, the nation eventually turned him 
loose as being no longer dangerous, and has permitted him to 



266 FIVE FORKS. 

live to a green old age, a dreamy witness of the total failure of 
his treason. 

It is of the men who fought, and dared and never flinched 
even when the supreme moment came, that we love to think 
to-day. Theirs is a name of honor, a record of deathless cour- 
age, that all true soldiers. North or South, must hold in respect 
and admiration. Even the victors could not see the dejected 
gray columns filing slowly westward in the dawn of that April 
Monday, without a thrill of sympathy for the brave fellows who 
had fought so long and well, only to come to this. We all know 
the story. That night of the 2d of April, blowing up the forts, 
burning the bridges behind him, Lee slowly fell back from 
Petersburg, making for Amelia Court-House, twenty-five miles 
to the west ; and Ewell, leaving Richmond in flames, pushed 
southwestward to join him. Early on Monday morning the Sixth 
Michigan sharp-shooters were waving their flags on the court- 
house in Petersburg, and a little squadron of cavalry, escorting 
two of General Weitzel's staff-officers, trotted through the curi- 
ous throngs in the Richmond streets, dismounted at the capitol, 
and there, taking from the pommel of his saddle the flag he had 
had in readiness for several days. Lieutenant J. L. DePeyster, a 
New York boy of eighteen, leaped up the steps with Captain Lang- 
don of the First regular artillery, and in a few moments the stars 
and stripes were thrown to the breeze in place of the humbled 
standard of rebellion. Richmond and Petersburg were at last 
taken, and there could be but few days more for the Southern 
army. 

It was Lee's hope to reach the Danville railway at Amelia 
Court-House, concentrate at that point, then fall back south- 
westward to Danville, and make a junction with the army of 
Joseph E. Johnston. It was the determination of Grant and 
Sheridan that he should do nothing of the kind. Lee expected 
Grant to follow on his track ; Grant decided to race and head 
him ofl'; and once more Sheridan was called on to take the lead. 
At Amelia Court-House Longstreet, Gordon and Ewell united 
their wearied and hungry troops. Here was the railway, but 
where were the hoped-for supplies ? Sheridan had seized the 



SHERIDAN HEADS THE CHASE OF LEE. 267 

road ten miles to the southwest of them, and, with his troopers 
and the swift-footed Fifth corps, held and barred the way. 
Meade, with the Second and Sixth, was but a short distance 
behind him; Grant, with Ord and the Twenty-fourth, farther to 
the south along the South Side railway. Lee found that he 
could not reach Danville ; but there was another hope : Lynch- 
burg, fifty miles west — Lynchburg and the neighboring moun- 
tains. Thither he turned his weary eyes, and, with Sheridan 
hanging to his bleeding flanks and worrying the column over 
every mile of road, the Southern leader strove to keep his men 
together and still push ahead. Almost every hour he had to 
turn and fight ; first on one side, then on the other, in front, 
flank and rear; small detachments of cavalry leaped upon his 
batteries or trains, lopping off a few guns, a score of wagons or 
an hundred prisoners at every cross-road, while behind him and 
on his left, pushed relentlessly ahead the now enthusiastic infan- 
try of the Army of the Potomac. Lucky were Lee's men who 
had an ear of corn to nibble ; lucky were Grant's who could 
snatch an hour of sleep. Night and day, for five successive 
suns, it was one vehement, never relaxing pursuit, varied only 
by the savage combats that attended Lee's every halt for breath. 
At Sailors' Creek, at Farmville, at High Bridge, where again 
they strode along the banks of Appomattox, there was bloody 
fighting ; but never for an instant could the Southern general 
shake off" the death-grip of Sheridan ; never could he distance 
the inexorable pursuit of those long blue columns. Every day, 
every hour his men were dwindling away by whole thousands. 
He had full 40,000 at Amelia on the 5th, and at least one-fourth 
of these were gone when his staggering columns pushed on for 
the last march of all — the 8th of April. He had succeeded in 
crossing to the north side of the Appomattox now, leaving 
Ewell's corps, with Ewell himself, Kershaw, Custis Lee, Dubose, 
Hunton and Corse, as prisoners, a loss of fully 8,000 men sus- 
tained in one day ; and now, with Humphreys and Wright close 
behind him on the north side, and Sheridan's cavalry, Ord and 
Griffin's corps on the south side and even with his leading col- 
umns, Lee was striking for Appumattox Court-House, where 



268 t'lYK FORKS. 

supplies were awaiting him. Which could reach it first, Lee or 
Sheridan ? 

On the 7th Grant had written a few words to General Lee, 
pointing out to him the hopelessness of further resistance, and 
asking his surrender as the only means of avoiding further 
bloodshed. Lee replied that he did not regard his situation as 
hopeless, but inquired what terms would be offered. On the 
8th Grant had offered most lenient terms — the mere disqualifica- 
tion of all surrendered officers or men from again taking up 
arms until properly exchanged ; but Lee still hoped to escape. 
He counted on getting those supplies at Appomattox and then 
breaking for Lynchburg, only a long day's march av»'ay, and he 
declined. This correspondence was really conducted on the 
run, for both armies were pushed to the utmost in the race. But 
Lee stopped twice on the 7th and 8th to fight Humphreys, who 
was clinging to the rear with a grasp that threatened to pull him 
to earth, and the delay was fatal. Stopping for nothing, Sheri- 
dan's cavalry shot forward along the lower road, sprang upon 
the railway station beyond the Court-House, Custer's cheering 
troopers rode recklessly in among the coveted trains, and, long 
before the morning of the 9th, had whisked every vestige of 
supplies out of sight; brigade after brigade came trotting up 
from the southeast and, deploying its skirmish lines up the 
Richmond road toward the Court-House, five miles away, 
whither Custer had already driven the advanced guard of Lee's 
army, sent forward with empty wagons for those desperately 
needed rations. Poor fellows ! Hungry, tired and foot-sore, 
they never thought to find the Yankees there first, but that 
night Lee knew that Sheridan's cavalry had " headed " him, and 
that now he must not only fight back the fierce pursuers so 
close at his rear — he must cut his way through those daring 
troopers in front. Still, thought he, it is only cavalry, and Gor- 
don's men can brush them away like a swarm of gnats. 

But that night Sheridan was driving back staff-officers and 
couriers to Grant, to Ord, to Griffin, urging, demanding " full 
speed ahead." He had at last thrown himself squarely across 
the beaten army's track. He would hold it firmly as cavalry 



THE WHITE FLAG HOISTED. 2'Jl 

could hold anything, but to block Lee entirely, to oppose in- 
fantry and batteries with infantry and batteries, he must have the 
Fifth and Twenty-fourth corps. " We will finish the job in the 
morning," he wrote, if Gibbon and Griffin could only reach him. 

Reach him they did ; but what a march ! Ord pushed the 
Twenty-fourth corps from daybreak on the 8th to daybreak on 
the 9th with only three hours' rest. Griffin trudged through the 
muddy roads twenty-six miles, until two o'clock in the morning, 
took a cat-nap in the woods until four, pushed on again, and 
reached Sheridan at six : just in time. 

Facing northeastward now, so as to confront the gray columns 
coming down the Richmond road, Sheridan deployed his dis- 
mounted skirmishers far out to the front, backed them up by 
strong cavalry reserves, and behind this veil of horsemen Ord 
formed the long solid lines of the infantry across the silent val- 
ley west of the Court-House. All unconscious of what was in 
store for them, Lee's men, obedient to the last, sprang forward 
with rolling volleys to dash aside the insolent troopers barring 
their path. Slowly the long lines fell back towards their wait- 
ing horses ; " Rally " and " Mount," rang the trumpet-calls, and, 
leaping lightly into saddle, the horsemen trotted gayly off to 
right and left, drawing the curtain from a picture before which 
Lee recoiled in dismay — the infantry, the Army of the Potomac. 

Then at last was he brought to bay. Forward he could not 
go. Sheridan, Ord and Griffin barred the way. Back he could 
not turn — Meade, Humphreys and Wright were thundering 
at his rear. Prompt action too was demanded, for Sheridan 
was fuming for instant attack. Lee sent requests to Humphreys 
begging him to hold off his men until he could communicate 
with Grant, but that thorough-going soldier replied that the re 
quest could not be complied with, and went on forming for 
attack on Longstreet who was facing him; but just as he was 
about to launch his corps in to the assault, Meade arrived and 
ordered an hour's truce. On the other side, too, just as Sheri- 
dan was about to charge, a white flag was waved over the 
Southern lines and Generals Gordon and Wilcox rode forward 
to say that negotiations for surrender were already going on. 



2.1 Z FIVE FORKS. 

If this were so, said Sheridan, what business had they to attack 
him and to persist in the attack up to the moment they dis- 
covered he was backed by infantry ? He was half-incHned to 
think it all a trick, a deception, and was fiercely striding up and 
down a little farm-yard when one of Grant's staff-officers rode 
up to him. " I've got 'em /" said he, vehemently ; " I've got 'em 
like that',' clinching his muscular fist and setting his teeth, and 
it was plain to see that he hated to let go. 

But it was no trick. Grant himself speedily arrived, and, 
while his army completely encircled that of Lee, the two great 
leaders met at the humble house of farmer McLean, and there 
the surr-ender was quietly accomplished. In a few calm words 
the generals settled the preliminaries, and then affixed their 
signatures to the paper that disarmed and disbanded forever the 
gallant Army of Northern Virginia. 

One week ago, this still Sunday morning, the flight from Rich- 
mond and Petersburg had begun. Now in this humble farm- 
house, nearly an hundred miles to the westward, in this obscure 
and hitherto ulimentioned valley, the closing scene of the 
greatest drama of our history was being enacted. In the bare 
country room, furnished with a plain wooden table and two or 
three rude chairs, Grant, Lee, each with an aide-de-camp, and 
subsequently Ord, Sheridan and a few staff-officers, were gathered. 
The two great chiefs presented a striking contrast. Lee, erect, 
soldierly, dignified and formally courteous, the beau-ideal of a 
chivalric soldier, accepting with calm fortitude his defeat — but- 
toned to the throat in his newest and most becoming uniform ; 
its stars and gold-lace fresh and untarnished ; his gauntlets em- 
broidered and spotless ; his boots polished ; his beautiful sword 
burnished and glittering; his aide-de-camp as accurately attired 
as himself. Lee certainly had the advantage in personal ap- 
t>earance over every man in the party. Grant, in a loose-fitting, 
unbuttoned uniform coat, with waistcoat and trowsers of un- 
military cut, and much splashed with mire, with muddy boots 
and not a symptom of sword or spur, with plain, Western man- 
ners, unkempt beard and a figure somewhat slouchy and round- 
diouldcrcd — Grant assuredly looked very little like a conquer- 



LEE'S FORTITUDE GIVES WAY. 273 

mg hero, and probably felt very little like one. He had been 
ill on the march, and was sorely jaded and tired. The real 
hero of the picture, next to Lee — the real hero of the vehement 
pursuit and capture, next to nobody, was the sturdy trooper 
Sheridan. His form was snugly buttoned in the double-breasted 
frock coat of a major-general, the dress he wore on all occasions 
in the field ; his short legs were thrust deep into huge cavalry 
boots ; his eyes were still snapping with the flame of the morn- 
ing's fight ; his whole manner was so suggestive of the trick he 
had of hitching nervously forward in the saddle when things 
were not going exactly to suit him, that he looked to some pres- 
ent as though he were still half disposed to suspect some ruse 
— some trick, and was ready to spring to horse and pitch in 
again at an instant's notice. But there was no need. Lee's sur- 
render was an accomplished fact, and having signed the formal 
papers, the Southern leader remounted, and, saluted by all 
present, rode back to his own lines — back to the starving and 
still devoted men for whom he had this moment to beg bread. 
Here the calm fortitude that had borne him with gentle 
dignity through that painful interview at last gave way, and as 
he gazed down into the wan faces that thronged about him, great 
tears trickled down his furrowed cheeks. No such terms had 
ever been granted to insurgent armies in any previous surrender; 
his oflficers retained their swords and personal effects, and all 
were allowed, officers and men, to take home with them their 
horses. They were to be fed and cared for at once, and given 
free transportation over any government lines on their journeys 
homeward ; they might continue to wear the old uniform so 
dear to them, except the insignia of rank ; all that was required 
was the surrender of their arms, standards and munitions of war, 
and the individual pledge of the ofificers to take no further part in 
the war against the Union. " We have fought through the war 
together," he said brokenly to them : " I have done the best I 
could for you." 

Two days afterwards the muster-rolls of the Army of Northern 
Virginia were completed, and on the lovely morning of the 12th 
of April, while the Union troops stood at a distance, the Southern 



274 



FIVE FORKS. 



divisions marched forth for the last time, halted, dressed their 
lines with old-time precision, then in solemn silence fixed bay- 
onets, stacked their arms, unbuckled and unslung the worn old 
belts and cartridge-boxes, hung them on the stacks, placed with 
them the tattered, smoke-stained flags, which many of them 
bent to kiss with reverent farewell, and then, falling back from 
the lines, this last remnant of the Army of Northern Virginia 
dispersed forever. 

On the Union side no sign of exultation, no cheer, no taunt, 
no strain of stirring music was permitted. In soldierly silence 
■ — even in soldierly sympathy, the last act was witnessed, and 
then came the homeward march. The work of the Army of 
the Potomac at last was done. 

By actual figures the number of men turned over at Lee's 
surrender at Appomattox was 28,356. Of these nearly 15,- 
CXX) were of Longstreet's corps ; 7,200 of Gordon's ; only 287 
of Ewell's (the rest having been killed or captured around 
Sailor's Creek and Farmville), and the others belonged to the 
cavalry, artillery and navy battalion and provost-guards. Some 
assertions have been made by Southern writers that only 8,000 
of those surrendered bore arms, but the circumstance would 
have no especial significance even were it true, for it was an 
easy matter to throw their rifles into the little streams or ponds 
or bury them in the thick woods, and whether in their hands or 
not, over 22,000 small arms were actually turned over at the 
surrender; while from the 29th of March to the 9th of April <i 
total of 74,000 prisoners had been taken from the Southern 
ranks by Grant's army in Virginia. His losses during the same 
period were 9,944, and are given by General Kumpnreys, whose 
history of the closing campaign of the war is accepted by all 
soldiers as the most reliable and complete yet written. 

On the 25th of April General Johnston with his army sur- 
rendered to General Sherman ; others soon followed, and, ex- 
cept for a guerilla warfare across the Mississippi, speedily settled 
by " that inevitable Sheridan," as the Southerners had learned 
to call him, the war of the Rebellion was at an end. Foiled in 
their scheme of ruling or ruining the Great Republic, abandon- 




^yy\clcyk>c€r^ 



ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 2// 

ing the people whom they had dragged into such widespread 
misery and destitution, the leaders of the movement sought 
safety in flight, leaving behind them for the final blow one 
wretched yet fit instrument of their shameful and malignant 
hate. Even as the loyal North rejoiced in the glad incoming 
of peace — even as he, the patient, the gentle, the all-merciful, 
the generous, who had stood to the helm through all the fear- 
ful tempest, was now seeking how best to aid, how surest to 
bring back into the fold the suffering people of the South, 
cowardly murder robbed the Nation of Abraham Lincoln, and 
the war that had leaped into flame from the torch of treason 
sputtered out at last in the quenching life-blood of our martyred 
President. 



^!>RAVELOTTR 




1870. 

APOLEON THE GREAT, the conqueror ot 

Austerlitz and Jena, has been called a military 
despot, which he undoubtedly was : more thar 
this he was a household despot and ruled the 
affairs of kith and kin as relentlessly as he did 
those of conquered states. He had raised 
the family from obscurity to fame and posi- 
tion, and demanded the right to dispose of 
them as he would. In furtherance of this doctrine he compelled 
his brother Louis Buonaparte in 1802 to marry Hortense Beau- 
harnais, daughter of Josephine. As Louis was avowedly in love 
with a cousin of the young lady in question, and the young lady 
herself was engaged to General Duroc, the match was unhappy 
from the start. Three sons were born to Hortense, and the 
third, Charles Louis Napoleon, who came into this world on the 
20th of April, 1808, rose to prominence in history, as Napoleon 
HI., Emperor of the French. 

The eldest son died when a child; the second in 1831, and 
Charles Louis Napoleon became heir to the Buonapartist claims 
to the throne of France. He led a life of adventure, conspiracy 
and intrigue ; was twice imprisoned for political crimes, when 
hanging would have more adequately punished the offence ; he 
was a fugitive from justice, and an exile here in our own country, 
where the New Jersey and Maryland Buonapartes turned the 
cold shoulder on him, and where neither his conduct nor his 
associates were particularly creditable ; and the death of the 
Duke of Reichstadt, the only legitimate son of the Emperor 
Napoleon, was followed by plot after plot on the part of this 
278 



CHARLES LOUIS NAl>OLEON, EMl'EROR. 5;^ 

exiled nephew of the great emperor, aimed at the overthrow of 
the Bourbon king. In 1848 France broke out into another of 
her revolutions and essayed again to start a repubhc. Louis 
Napoleon, watching and waiting in England, slipped over at the 
opportune moment, and the old name was enough for the mer- 
curial, sensation-loving people ; he was elected President by an 
overwhelming vote. Three years afterwards, having obtained 
complete control of the Army and the Press of the nation, he 
seized and imprisoned the National Assembly, placed Paris 
under martial law, demanded an election for a term of ten years 
with power to name his own cabinet, and, when the people rose 
against such outrage, he slaughtered them without mercy ; 
5,000 men, women and children, natives and foreigners, were 
butchered ; thousands were sent away into exile or penal servi- 
tude, and having thus stamped out the " insurrection," crushed 
the leaders of the people, muzzled or bought the Press, and 
taken the nation by the throat, he demanded the free will offering 
of their votes. Naturally he carried the polls, and in December, 
1852, this Prince-President became Napoleon III., Emperor " By 
the Grace of God and the will of the French people." 

There is no question as to the ability of the man, and the 
brilliancy of his rule both as President and Emperor. France 
throve under his guidance ; industries and improvements of 
every kind flourished throughout the land, and commerce 
developed as it never had before. The navy was built up and 
manned so as to rival even that of England, and the military 
spirit of the people was fostered by exercises and manoeuvres 
that made the army the pride and delight of the nation. Skill- 
fully avoiding all dissensions with the powerful monarchies 
around him, ignoring the slights of the crowned heads of 
Europe, he worked steadily, building up his strength and devel- 
oping his resources, until France became a power that had to be 
conciliated and fawned upon, and then even proud England was 
glad to enter into an alliance with her. Wily, scheming and 
unscrupulous, the new emperor successfully felt his way. Rail- 
ways, harbors, arsenals, manufactories sprang up in all direc-. 
tions, labor was eveiywhere worthy its hire, money flowed in 



28o Gt^AVELOTTE. 

profusion, all was prosperity. Then came the Crimean war, 
and, while England fought and blundered with her invariable 
courage and accustomed stupidity, suffering all the hard knocks 
and ge,tting none of the credit of the war, France laughingly 
praised her ally's pluck, condoned her faults, good-naturedly put 
up with her temporizing and delay around Sebastopol, helped her 
out when she got in a tight place, as at Inkermann, and reaped 
all the credit and glory that could well be extracted from that 
mismanaged war, while dexterously letting England foot the 
bills and butt her own head against the walls of the Russian 
stronghold. Napoleon III. came out in a blaze of triumph ; the 
French people were as ready to stand by him as ever they were 
to rally to the eagles of his uncle, and England's Queen had to 
decorate him, so lately an outcast in the London streets, with 
that priceless Order of the Garter, and to greet his beautiful but 
unknown wife with the kiss of royal sisterhood. The birth of 
the Prince Imperial in 1856 — a baby-boy who was said to 
strongly resemble his renowned grand-uncle — had strengthened 
the Napoleonic hold on the French people; and when the 
emperor himself went forth to lead the eagles of France in the 
Italian campaign against Austria in 1859, Europe had no sover- 
eign so popular, so fortunate. France had forgotten the bloody 
scenes of the coup d'etat of eight years before. 

But Louis Napoleon was now growing old ; disease had 
begun to tell upon him ; death might come at any time, and he 
felt that, to secure tlie throne to his son, still further glories 
must be brought through his guidance, to France. At the mo- 
ment there was no opportunity in Europe, but our own civil war 
enabled him to make a lodgment in Mexico — a blow aimed as 
much at the United States as at the struggling republic on our 
borders. England would not join him in his scheme for the 
recognition of the Southern Confederacy. Mexico proved too 
strong for Maximilian, whom the emperor had planted on the 
throne, and then abandoned when he found that our quarrel was 
settled and his troops would be useless. Then he turned back 
to the frontiers of France. The outbreak of a war between 
Prussia and Austria in 1866 gave him a coveted opportunity. 




CHARLES LOUIS NAPOLEON. 
(NiJ>OI.KON III.) 



INTRIGUING WITH RIVAL CONTESTANTS. 283 

He offered Austria the aid of France provided she would inake 
over to him the Rhine provinces and Belgium as his share of 
the to-be-conquered territory, and Austria declined. Then this 
two-faced plotter turned to Prussia and offered to help her for 
the consideration of Baden and Wurtemberg ; and Prussia did 
not need his help and would not have it if she did, and told him 
so in diplomatic but emphatic terms. Then, to his amaze, in 
seven weeks Prussia had completely thrashed the armies of 
proud Austria, and Napoleon woke up to a realizing sense of the 
fact that here was a military nation it behooved him to beware 
of. Now his whole attention was turned to Prussia, the nation 
that had so relentlessly striven against his uncle and patron 
saint — and that was destined to humble him and his forever. 

Led by old " Marshal Vorwaerts," the Prussian armies, as we 
have seen, had come in just at the opportune moment at Water- 
loo, and chased the dejected Frenchmen back to Paris ; but the 
humiliation of the Jena year was not to be avenged by a divided 
triumph. Under Frederick the Great the military system of 
Prussia rose superior to all Europe, but her stern preparations 
languished with his death, and the wars with Napoleon showed 
her soldiers that they had fallen behind. England took a long 
breath and a national nap after Waterloo, fondly imagining that 
British pluck and brawn and loyalty would win anywhere and 
against anybody, and that study, drill and exercise were only 
for nations less favored by Divine Providence with the attributes 
of conquerors. Prussia went to work with a will. Surrounded 
as she was by old-time enemies on every side, her geographical 
position made her cautious. Sweden, Russia, Austria, France 
and Denmark lay around her like a cordon of wolves, and all 
the beautiful German provinces — Baden, Wurtemberg, Bavaria 
to the south, and the Rhineland and Belgium towards the west, 
were only half-friendly to Prussian interests. Nothing but the 
possession of the most perfect military machine in the world 
would enable the Prussians to hold their own ; and with rare 
patience, skill and diligence they set themselves at the task. 
Every able-bodied man became a soldier; every brilliant mind 
was levied upon for its contribution to the perfection of that 
16 



284 GRAVELOTTE. 

machine on which the nation was at work. Forty years after 
Waterloo, when France, England and Turkey clinched with 
Russia in the Crimea, Prussia calmly compared their military 
shortcomings with her own advancement, and marvelled at the 
unprogressive management that sent the armies of three great 
powers into conflict, armed with the despised old smooth-bore 
musket, or the faulty and untried rifles of Minie, Delvigne and 
the new Enfield system ; while she, Prussia, had since '48 taught 
her troops the use and benefit of the breech-loader — the now 
famous needle-gun of Dreyse. 

Wonderful changes had been made in the fire-arms of Europe 
in the last century. The old match-lock and wall-piece had dis- 
appeared before Marlborough fought at Blenheim, and " Brown 
Bess," the flint-lock, stepped in as the British soldier's pet and 
pride. So conservative is the Englishman, that for a century 
and a half that long, cumbrous, unreliable old musket, with few 
modifications, remained his favorite weapon of war. Adopting 
the bayonet from the French, he dropped the match for the flint 
and steel, and, for years, that clumsy appliance satisfied the 
armies of Europe, though the Americans, with their squirrel- 
rifles, well-nigh annihilated the British grenadiers on a dozen 
fields. Then came the handy little percussion-cap, and the 
military mechanism of " load " was reduced from fifteen to nine 
motions. Still it was Brown Bess that went to war late as 1846. 
In the 50's the armies of Europe had to adopt the grooved rifle- 
barrel, the elongated ball, and practice at long range ; and still 
they were a decade behind Prussia; for all Christendom was 
aghast when, in 1866, the armies of that rigid little kingdom 
marched to Sadowa, and there, despite a blunder that ought to 
have cost them the battle, swept out an empire with their breech- 
IC)aders. Prussia became the nucleus, the acknowledged leader 
of the North German Confederation. Austria fell back discom- 
fited, and Louis Napoleon, on the throne of France, marked with 
mfinite chagrin the leap to prominence and power of the most 
implacable enemy of his house. 

Of course all Europe saw the necessity of immediate change 
of armament. Inventions of breech-loading rifl»s were eagerly 




ARMS AND ACCOUTREMENTS OF THE 19TH CENTUB?: 

{Ju>r description, see next page.-i 



Arms and Accoutrements of the 19th Century. 

Numbers refer to Illustrations on preceding page. 



I 


Needle Gun. 


23- 


Knapsack. 


2. 


Chassepot. 


24. 


Canteen. 


3. 


Springfield Rifle. 


25. 


Krupp 12-inch Gun and 


4- 


Martini-Henry Rifle. 




Cartridge. 


5- 


Vitterlin Gun. 


26. 


Section of Conical Steel 


6. 


Werndl Rifle. 




Shot. 


7- 


Revolver. 


27. 


Ramrod and Wiper. 


8. 


Cartridge and Ball. 


28. 


Gatling Gun. 


9- 


Rifle Ball. 


29. 


Parrott Gun. 


10. 


Bayonet. 


30. 


Siege Gun. 


1 1. 


Officer's Sword. 


31, 


32, 33. Artillery Cartridges. 


12. 


Sabre. 


34- 


Armstrong Gun. 


13. 


Cavalry Sabre. 


35- 


Mortar. 


14 


Sabre Bayonet. 


36. 


Round Shot. 


i5> 


(6, 17, 18. Standards. 


37- 


Sea-Coast Gun. 


19 


Drum. 


38. 


Krupp Mortar and Carriage. 


20 


Cartridge Box. 


39 to 56. Modern Military Caps, 


21. 


Trumpet. 




Hats and Helmets. 


22 


Cuirass. 







286 



I 



THE PRUSSIAN NEEDLE-GUN. 287 

rewarded, tested, and several systems were adopted. Let us 
take a brief look at those which were best known in 1870. 
First the " Ziindnadelgewehr," Prussia's famous needle-gun. 
Thirty years Herr Dreyse labored over his invention, and the 
principle on which his splendid arm is working to-day is pre- 
cisely that which secured its adoption in Berlin in 1848. Slight 
modifications appear in the cartridge, but the gun is substanti- 
ally the same. Compared with the beautiful weapons turned 
out of late years in American armories, the Prussian needle-gun 
looks somewhat old-fashioned and clumsy ; it certainly weighs 
too much — twelve pounds ; but it has stood the test cS three 
wars, and, bulky as it is, the mechanism works admirably, rarely 
gets out of order, and it shoots straight and well, far as a man 
can see to aim with any precision, so the Prussians swear by it. 

The breech apparatus and needle-lock consist substantially 
of three hollow cylinders working smoothly one within the 
other ; the innermost contains a solid steel bolt, and to this bolt 
is firmly fastened the steel needle. To load the gun, the breech- 
handle is drawn back, a long slit opens in the upper side of the 
breech, the cartridge is dropped in the slit, the handle pushed 
forward and locked, by which movement the cartridge is firmly 
set in its position with the point of the needle just touching the 
base of the paper shell. A short upright handle back of the 
chamber brings the gun to full cock, and compresses the spiral 
spring which controls the needle-bolt ; a firm pull on the trigger 
releases the spring, the heavy bolt flies forward driving the nee- 
dle through the paper base and through the powder, until its 
point strikes a cap of fulminate placed at the base of the bullet, 
fire flashes at once, the piece is discharged and the bore is wiped 
out by the cartridge-paper. The odd thing about the explosion 
of this cartridge is, that it begins from the front instead of the 
base, as is the system with all other modern war rifles. 

Now when France decided that she too must have a breech- 
loader to match that of Prussia, the inspector-general of arms, M. 
Chassepot, came out with his invention in 1863, and, with im- 
provements adopted in 1866, the gun became the arm of the 
French infantry in time for the next great war. It was lighter. 



2QQ GRAVELOTTE. 

it was handier, it shot with what is called a flatter trajectory; 
that is, its bullet in going a given distance did not have to rise 
as high as the Prussian ; but it had serious defects. The breech 
was closed by the method known as " internal obduration," the 
escape of gas being checked by thrusting the chamber into the 
barrel ; the barrel would foul in rapid firing, in which case the 
chamber would not enter, the excitable Frenchmen would ham-, 
mer, shake or blow into their guns and so make bad worse. The 
Chassepot proved one of the many failures of their great war, 
and, in common with some other European nations, France 
came to America for her next gun, and America by this time 
was ready to supply the world. Of our own systems of breech- 
loading fire-arms (single-shooters), the best known to-day are 
those which were already leaders when France, Turkey, Egypt 
and other old-world nations sent agents here for the purpose 
of selection and purchase. The Sharp, the Remington, the 
Springfield, the Ward-Burton and the Peabody-Martini, have all 
had enthusiastic adherents and marked success ; the Peabody- 
Martini has proved to be the most wonderful gun for long-range 
fire in the world, as the Russians found when it came to the last 
war with Turkey ; but while they all differ in principle and con- 
struction, all have their merits, and all have stood the wear and 
tear of hard service (except the Ward-Burton, which did not 
prove a success on our dusty frontier), none were well enough 
known in Europe to be available when the great Franco-Prus- 
sian war broke out. After that, France sent for our Remington, 
and Prussia clung the more enthusiastically to her honest old 
needle-gun. Soldiers are the most conservative of men. Every 
improvement in fire-arms leads to a change in tactics, but sol- 
diers hate to change, and the older they get the more are they 
prone to cling to the systems and methods of their early days. 
The writer well remembers how contemptuously the rank and 
file of a German volunteer regiment rejected in 1861 the beau- 
tiful Springfield rifle just turned out from the national armory. 
A neighboring organization from the same State had been tem- 
porarily supplied with the cumbrous, brass-bound, big-bored 
Belgian ti^e rifle, and our Germans demanded the same. " Dis 



THE NAPOLEON GUN. 289 

vass no goot," said the spokesman, disdainfully dandling the 
new Springfield. "Da^ vass bei Vaterloo," and, as young soldiers 
are apt to be led by the traditions of the " old hands," it was with 
difficulty the regiment could be persuaded that the Belgian gun 
that possibly " fought at Waterloo " was far behind the age. 
France, in ordering her first breech-loader of M. Chassepot, made 
but one restriction — nothing must be copied from Prussia. The 
Chassepot was adopted, but before it had been fairly tested — 
long before the nation had learned how to use it — Louis Napo- 
leon led them into a terrific war, and was a ruined man in thirty 
days. 

Now the French had long laid claim to the distinction of 
being the most martial people of Europe. Led by Napoleon 
the First, Frenchmen had been well-nigh invincible. Algeria, 
the Crimea and Italy had seen much that warranted the belief 
that no other nation possessed such soldiers. They conquered 
Arabs and Algerines, and readily adapted themselves to the 
brilliant tactics and dispersed order required in fighting over 
sandy wastes. They battled with far greater skill (though none 
could fight with greater pluck) than their allies, the English, 
around Sebastopol ; and Napoleon III. reaped glory and do- 
minion from the successful campaign in which his armies 
fought and whipped the Austrians at Magenta and Solferino, 
He prided himself upon being, like his uncle, a skilled artillerist, 
and, having bought the invention of an impoverished captain, he in- 
troduced as his own creation the light twelve-pounder — a bronze, 
smooth-bore, chambered gun that was admirable for short-range 
fighting, and was immensely popular in America during the war 
of the rebellion. Indeed, many of our most distinguished battery 
commanders, from first to last, preferred the smooth-bore Napo- 
leon with its resonant roar and its ponderous mass to the lighter, 
handier, ten-pounder Parrott rifle, or the three-inch rifled " ord- 
nance gun." Certainly Napoleon III. had good reason to be 
proud of the gun that bore his name even when he experimented 
with rifled cannon against the Austrians, for at all ranges under 
two miles, his gun-howitzers proved the equals, if not the su- 
periors, of the French-made muzzle-loading rifles. But, feeling 



290 GRAVELGTTE. 

the need of a machine gun to cope with the American Gathng, 
which began to be known about the close of the war of the 
States, and was being vastly improved and offered for sale abroad 
in 1 869, Louis Napoleon had caused to be adopted a volleying gun 
of French invention and manufacture, a cumbrous machine that 
looked like a huge pepper-box on wheels; and, with much 
mystery of manufacture and ominous whisperings of its death- 
dealing power, the viitraillciise was introduced to the French 
artillery, and other European powers curiously sought an oppor- 
tunity of testing this new engine of which so much was prom- 
ised. It would sweep away whole regiments ; it would sqtiirl 
ounce bullets a mile and a half; it would be artillery and infan- 
try combined, for, unlike other batteries, it could defend itself 
against infantry attack. All manner of things were promised 
for this French invention ; yet the Prussian agents who took a 
look at it went back to Berlin without being much impressed. 
Napoleon would copy the ideas of no other nation. He declared 
his belief that with his mitrailleuse and the Chassepot, he could 
fight any power in the world. Wise counsellors whispered to 
him of new breech-loading field-guns manufactured by Herr 
Krupp of Essen. They were of steel, very light, and very pow- 
erful. Three men could serve them with rapidity and ease, and 
they would carry three miles with the accuracy of a target rifle ; 
but Napoleon pinned his faith to his antiquated smooth-bore — 
a " boomer" that would have delighted Frederick the Great, but 
made his grandchildren laugh in their sleeves. Wise counselors 
pointed out the ease and rapidity with which Prussia " mobilized" 
her armies, and could put 500,000 men into the field and en route 
for the frontiers in forty-eight hours. France could do more 
than that. According to his papers the emperor of the French 
had in readiness for action, completely armed, equipped and in- 
structed, 800,000 men — one-half in the active army, one-half in 
the reserves ; and to further strengthen this array, there stood 
half a million of national guardsmen. Sublime in his faith and 
fatuity. Napoleon never looked behind the face of the returns — 
never dreamed that more than half these numbers were in verity 
but paper soldiers. Bent on his project of firmly planting him- 



PRUSSIA ON THE ALERT. 291 

self and his race on the throne of France, and in the hearts 
of the French people, knowing well that no influence would 
be with them so potent as military renown, he determined 
on challenging the most powerful nation of Europe to mortal 
combat, and the nation of all others that from hereditary hatred 
France would be most willing to fight. He threw down the 
gauntlet to Prussia, who, all these years, had been studiously, 
diligently, scientifically training for just such a contingency. 
Far-sighted statesmen knew it must come, and so, while the 
light-hearted soldiers of France were dancing, singing and chat- 
ting over the glories of the past, the solemn Prussians were 
studying every line of French topography, every stone of French 
fortifications, and, when the great war finally burst forth, Prussia 
launched through " the corn-fields green and sunny vines " a 
host of skilled, vigilant, practised staff-officers, any one of whom 
knew more about the roads, resources, forts, bridges, railways, 
stores, arsenals and supplies of the "pleasant land of France," 
than the best of her gallant generals. " In time of peace prepare 
.for war," was the advice of our great Washington. We laud his 
memory, but scoff at that much of his advice. The Prussians 
are wise in their generation, and had been preparing for years. 
Let us glance at their leaders, and then go on to the armies of 
the two nations. 

In 1 870 the head of the Prussian nation was Friedrich Lud- 
wig Wilhelm, better known as William I., King of Prussia. He 
was seventy-three years old when the war broke out, was the 
second son of Frederick William III., and a grand-nephew of 
Frederick the Great, who, having died childless, had left his 
throne to a nephew. Following the warrior-King of Prussia 
came in succession three rulers, whose reigns were as inglori- 
ously weak as grim old Fritz's had been superbly strong. Fred- 
erick William II. died in 1797, after a brief and disastrous tenure 
of office. Frederick William III. was virtuous, amiable and 
meek, and Napoleon trampled him under foot in merciless and 
inhuman style, humiliating him in every possible way. His 
two sons were witnesses in their boyhood, to all the indignities 
inflicted by Napoleon upon the king and his people. Later they 



292 GRAVELUTTE, 

had the satisfaction of seeing the oppressor vanquished in .1814, 
and crushed at Waterloo. Frederick Wilham IV., the elder of 
these two sons, reigned from 1840 until his mental health gave 
way, then the younger brother took the reins, and, in 1860, 
became king on his own account. From that time forth Prussia 
has had a ruler to be proud of Educated a soldier, leading a 
soldier's life from earliest boyhood, William, King of Prussia 
and Emperor of United Germany lived beyond the allotted 
three-score years and ten, to a robust and vigorous manhood — 
to an old age of honor, wisdom and strength seldom attained by 
any modern monarch. Firm, positive, obstinate as was his dis- 
position in early life he became unpopular among the people ; 
but better counsels prevailed with advancing years, and the 
purity, integrity and dignity of his character won their way 
into the hearts of the earnest Germans, and " Kaiser Wilhelm " 
was, at eighty-six years of age, as deservedly loved as he 
is deservedly honored. His army was his especial care and 
pride, and never has military science been so thoroughly 
taught or so keenly appreciated as during his wise and provi- 
dent reign. Old almost as his imperial master, the modest- 
mannered little man, who guided the armies of Germany, stood 
intellectually head and shoulders over any soldier in Europe. 
Count von Moltke was the military giant of his day. To him is 
due the absolute perfection of the German military system and 
the unrivalled proficiency of the German staff. With von 
Moltke and von Roon at the head of the War Department, and 
that long-headed chancellor, Bismarck, directing the affairs of 
state, with her regular army of 450,000 men admirably led, dis- 
ciplined and equipped, Prussia stood in no especial fear of 
France, yet courted no difficulty. All the same if Napoleon saw 
fit to be aggressive, one can fancy the grim satisfaction with 
which the rumors of entanglements were received. Napoleon 
expected to find Prussia single-handed. Prussia knew that the 
South German States would stand by her in a war with France. 
In- threatening Prussia, Napoleon menaced the whole North 
German Confederation. In assaulting her, he aroused all Ger- 
many. Differences that might have existed when no common 




FRIEDRICH LUDWIG WILHELM. 
(WILLIAM I., King of Pbubbia.) 



THE THUNDERBOLT OF SADOWA. 295 

£nemy hovered over the frontier, were forgotten at his appear- 
ance. Baden and Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and even Saxony, 
leaped into line side by side with Prussia, of whose power all 
had grown jealous, but whose power and prowess made her now 
the acknowledged leader — the nucleus of the grand defence of 
the beloved Fatherland. Napoleon the Great would have made 
no such miscalculations as these, which, at the very outset, 
stamped with the seal of ruin the designs of his nephew. The 
war of 1866 had taught the latter only half a lesson. He had 
learned to look with jealous dread upon the vast strides made 
by Prussia, but he had failed to look within and satisfy himself 
as to whether corresponding improvement had been maintained 
in the military system of France. He could see how, left to 
themselves, jealousies and bickerings might disturb the harmony 
of that family of sisters — the German States. He could not see 
how, when threatened by an outsider, the entire sisterhood 
would rally like a flash to the support of the eldest and strong- 
est, against whom, but a moment before, they lavished their 
spiteful comments. South Germany, that is to say, such States 
as Baden, Bavaria and Wurtemberg, had largely, and Saxony 
had unanimously, sided with Austria in the war with Prussia, 
but when Prussia's three armies leaped across their frontiers the 
instant their defection became apparent and drove their astonished 
forces back upon Austrian territory to the supporting arms of the 
renowned Field-Marshal Benedek, and then, daring to concentrate 
his armies upon instead of before, the day of decisive battle, the 
Prussian king fearfully whipped the entire disposable field-forces of 
the empire, these wise South Germans decided that in future wars 
their safest plan would be to stand by Prussia, for, despite the 
military blunder by which King William utterly underrated the 
Austrian force in his front at Koniggratz, and which prompted 
him to undertake the attack while the army of the Crown Prince 
was still fifteen miles away, he won the bloody fight at an ex- 
pense of 9,000 killed and wounded among his own forces, against 
over 16,000 Austrians dead and crippled, taking, too, over 
20,000 prisoners and 174 cannon. This great victory of Sadowa 
settled the question as to who was to be mistress of United Ger- 



2g6 GRAVELOTTE. 

many; but Napoleon III. was wild enough to believe that at his 
beck and call, the South Germans would cut loose the new ties 
that united their interests with those of Prussia. He never made 
a worse mistake, unless it was when he thought to establish a 
French-made monarchy in Mexico. Prussia must be humbled, 
he said ; a pretext was all that was necessary. 

All this time he had, unsuspected, a powerful ally in his 
scheme — ally and enemy in one ; a man who meant to help him 
find a pretext for war with Prussia, meant to make the pretext 
so flimsy as to render the demands of France tantamount to in- 
sult, throw the whole burden of the blame on Napoleon, and, 
having goaded, guided and snared him into a declaration of war, 
then to turn to and thrash him with vehement and irresistible 
power. That man was Bismarck, the shrewdest statesman in 
Christendom, the subtle ruler of both the German king and the 
German people. 

Spain needed a new monarch. Queen Isabella had been 
exiled ; the provisional government sent to invite Prince Leopold 
of Hohenzollern — a Prussian subject, and Z'e7y probably Bis- 
marck's own candidate — to take the vacant throne. With 
hostile Prussia on his eastern frontier, Napoleon wanted no 
better excuse than this project of seating a Prussian on the 
throne to the southwest of France. His nation was burning 
with eagerness for a fight somewhere, and none so welcome as 
with Prussia. Napoleon demanded that the king should refuse 
to permit Prince Leopold to accept the Spanish crown on the 
ground that his reign would be a perpetual menace to France. 
Count Benedetti, a fiery and impetuous little Corsican, was the 
envoy of France at Berlin, and his conduct was such as to 
justify the impression that on the 13th of July flashed through- 
out Germany, that France had instructed him in a studied in- 
sult to the Prussian king. Two interviews had already taken 
place, in which the manner of the count was characterized by a 
vehemence and energy that is considered discourtesy in diplomatic 
affairs ; but France's excuse for war was at an end when Prince 
Leopold of his own accord signified his withdrawal. It even looks 
as though this too had been the move of Bismarck, who meant to 




PKINCB 



I^OPOLD OF BOHEKZOLLEEU, 



TltE DECI,ARATION OF WAR. ^99 

leave to the Emperor of France no valid pretext for his dicta- 
torial course ; but not to withdraw every exciting cause until so 
much had been done in the way of menace and bluster that 
France could not then escape the toils. 

On July 1 2th Benedetti knezv that Prince Leopold had with- 
drawn, and that some further pretext must be resorted to. 
King William on the 13th was calmly promenading near the 
public fountain at Ems, when Benedetti, regardless of all 
etiquette governing such matters, then and there demanded of 
the king a pledge that never in the future would Prussia permit 
one of her princely houses to take the Spanish crown, and the 
bluff old soldier-monarch very properly and promptly refused. 
France swore he turned his back on her envoy, and whether he 
did or not, the snub would have been deserved. The very next 
day all Europe knew that war would be the result, and, at two 
o'clock on the afternoon of July 15th, France flashed her 
declaration to the world. War was announced with Prussia 
because of — first, the insult offered at Ems to Count Benedetti ; 
second, the refusal of Prussia to compel the withdrawal of 
Leopold as a candidate for the Spanish succession (the idea 
of compelling a man to do a thing he had already done volun- 
tarily !) and third, the fact that the king refused to interfere with 
the prince's personal liberty in the matter of accepting or declin- 
ing the throne. 

Both nations had been preparing for five years for this very 
emergency — Prussia with all diligence and care, France with 
apparent assiduity. On paper the army of the latter was con- 
siderably the stronger, and in point of naval force Prussia was 
far behind ; but with the war, the navy had little to do. Rely- 
ing on the reports of his ministers and generals. Napoleon 
believed his army, both in point of numbers and efficiency, fully 
equal to that of Prussia. In point of daring and devotion he 
believed it far superior. Relying on the power of his own 
machinations, he believed that the South German States would 
now abandon their alliance with Prussia and leave her to her 
fate. But all Germany sprang to arms when the arrogant 
demands of France and the rudeness of her minister were made 
17 



300 



GRAVELOTTE. 



known ; and at the very outbreak of hostilities, Napoleon the 
Third was confronted by two unlooked-for catastrophes. First : 
United Germany, not unaided Prussia, replied with defiance to 
his challenge. Second : Fraud of the worst order had been 
practised with the army returns for years past. Pay and cloth- 
ing had been drawn for men whose only existence was b\' 
name on paper, and, among the reserves at least, nearly three- 
fifths of the entire force were absolutely not to be found when 
summoned to the colors ; France had been systematically 
swindled by officials high in public trust. Even in the regular 
army there had been astonishing fraud, and, not until too late to 
retract, did Napoleon find that his reliable force fell short of his 
estimate fully one-half 

But France had a population of some 38,(X)0,000, and the 
nation took up the war in glorious earnest. Senate and people 
in a flush of enthusiasm pledged unlimited men and money and 
devotion for the cause, and for the moment all was loyalty to 
Napoleon. " On to Berlin ! " was the cry. No Frenchman 
could doubt that there along the banks of the Spree, the nephew 
of the conqueror of Jena would dictate a peace as glorious as 
that of Tilsit. "Where shall I address your letters?" asked 
eager Parisians of the departing soldiery. ''Poste restante, Berlin" 
was the confident reply. On July 19th the formal declaration 
of war reached the Prussian cabinet. Both nations leaped 
forward to grapple on the frontier. The little river Saar became 
the dividing line; Saarbruck, a little village just outside the 
French territory, the point where the first blow fell. On July 
20th a French skirmisher was shot by a Prussian fusileer. On 
the 23d, Prussia sent a reconnoitring party over towards St. 
Avoid, and exchanged shots with the light dragoons of France. 
On the 26th a scouting force of Frenchmen fell back before the 
German Uhlans, and so on to the ist of August, while the 
armies swarmed to the front, there were lively little rallies and 
skirmishes among the first arrivals. On the 2d of August 
France had her available force on the frontier, and thought her- 
self ready to leap into Germany. On the same day Prussia had 
the bulk of her army west of the Rhine, and knew herself ready 
to leap into France. 



GERMAN AND FRENCH LEADERS. 30X 

According to returns, which, even as Lite as August, exag- 
gerated his numbers, Napoleon had gathered along a Hne of 
some eighty-five miles about 350,000 men. His right wing 
faced the Lauter ; his centre the Saar ; his left the Moselle. 
Against them marched three German armies, with a fourth in 
support, aggregating on that front alone some 560,000 men. 
The First Army, composed of the First, Seventh and Eighth 
corps, and led by General Steinmetz, advanced against the French 
left along the Moselle. The Second Army, composed of the 
Second, Third, Ninth and Tenth corps, and led by Prince Fried- 
rich Karl (the Red Prince), advanced upon the French centre 
along the Saar. The Third Army, composed of the Fifth, 
Sixth and Eleventh corps, the two Bavarian corps, and led by 
the Crown Prince of Prussia (" Unser Fritz "), advanced against 
the French right along the Lauter. The Fourth Army, com- 
posed of the Fourth and Twelfth corps and the Saxon and Prus- 
sian Guards, and led by the Crown Prince of Saxony, marched 
with the German centre. The Fifth Army, mainly Wurtem- 
berg and Baden troops, under General Werder, was directed to 
attack Strasburg on the Rhine. The Sixth and Seventh Armies 
defended the northern coast. Each German corps had a nominal 
strength of 40,000 men. 

Gallant soldiers, so far as courage and devotion went, were 
they who confronted these disciplined German masses. The 
emperor had not yet reached the front, and the army corps 
were for the moment acting somewhat independently of one 
another. They were composed, with one exception, of 30,000 
men each (the First corps had 45,000), and commanded as fol- 
lows : First corps, MacMahon ; Second corps, Frossard ; Third 
torps, Bazaine; Fourth corps, L'Admirault; Fifth corps, De 
Kailly ; Sixth corps, Canrobert ; Seventh corps, Douay ; Eighth 
corps (Guards), Bourbaki. The cavalry was estimated at 34,000. 
Artillery and reserves 40,000 more. 

On the 2d of August the emperor and his boy-prince arrived 
and witnessed the skirmishing between Frossard's men and the 
Prussians at Saarbruck. " Louis has received his baptism of fire," 
telegraphed the emperor to Eugenie, whqin he had left at Paris. 



202 GRAVELOTTE. 

Poor mother ! Her only child was at the front when the crash 
came. One can but look with sympathy and sorrow upon the 
wreck of all those high hopes and fond aspirations when the 
gallant boy who had his soldier's baptism at Saarbruck, faced 
his soldier's death, dauntless though deserted, fighting England's 
savage foes when English friends had fled, in that wretched 
jungle in South Africa only so short a while ago. "The sol- 
diers wept at his tranquillity," wired Napoleon. They would 
have wept the more could they have foreseen his hopeless rally 
and lonely struggle for life against those swarming Zulus. It 
would have been better for the Napoleonic cause had the bullet 
he picked up at Saarbruck found its billet then and there in 
his boyish heart. 

On August 4th the Crown Prince of Prussia swooped with 
his army across the Lauter, and, to the amaze of France, 
whipped MacMahonand seized Weissenburg, the key to Alsace. 
On the 5th the First Army crossed the Saar. On the 6th two 
great battles were fought, and, despite severe losses in killed 
and wounded, and most determined gallantry on part of the 
French, German system, science and tactics prevailed ; Mac- 
Mahon was terribly beaten at Woerth by " Unser Fritz," losing 
18,000 in killed, wounded and prisoners, and being driven back 
in great disorder towards Metz ; while, still farther to the north, 
old Steinmetz with the First Army fought and w^on the bloody 
fight of Forbach or Spicheren Heights, and drove Frossard 
back on parallel roads with MacMahon's dismayed remnants, 
until they met the sheltering forces of Bazaine. The grand ad- 
vance of France on Berlin was turned into ghastly rout. Na- 
poleon was stunned. On the 7th a proclamation to the French 
people, signed by the Empress-regent, Eugenie, reluctantly con- 
fessed the disaster ; and by orders of the emperor Marshal 
Leboeuf was dismissed from the command of the army; Bazaine 
was raised to his place ; Trochu, hitherto disliked by the em- 
peror, was made military governor of Paris; Ollivier was required 
to resign his office as prime-minister, and Palikao became premier 
in his stead. Napoleon was just waking up to the realization of 
the befogged condition in which his chief advisers had kept him. 



MOLTKE'S PRECISE CALCULATIONS. 303 

But it was too late now. Like a mig'.ity torrent the armies of 
Germany surged over the frontier and pushed forward towards 
the great fortifications of Metz. The king himself had come 
with the army of the Red Prince. With him were two wonder- 
ful men, Bismarck, the statesman, and Moltkc, " The Silent." 
The former to advise, almost to dictate, every move in statecraft; 
the latter to be the real commander-in-chief Modest, shy in 
manner, unassuming in dress and deportment, having only two 
apparent passions, whist and snuff, this marvellous little general 
came upon the field and quietly took general charge of the ad- 
vance. Nothing had been a surprise to him. He expected 
just such results. He counted upon just such victories. He 
knew every inch of the French territory. He knew that now 
only one hope remained to the beaten emperor — that of uniting 
his shattered commands and falling back fighting to the lines 
of Paris. And now, as though it had all been discussed and 
planned years before, Moltke made his moves to destroy those 
hopes and projects. 

MacMahon, with some 60,000 men, all he could rally from 
half a dozen corps, was by this time falling back to the towns 
of Nancy and Toul, with the intention of retreating to Paris by 
way of Chalons on the Marne, where was an immense fortified 
camp. Bazaine, with a much larger army, fully 150,000 strong, 
was retiring before the hammering Prussians towards Metz. 
MacMahon expected to reach Chalons undisturbed ; to be 
joined there by vast reinforcements now hurrying forward from 
Paris, and to keep in communication with Bazaine. To his 
amaze, the army of the German Crown Prince leaped the Moselle 
in pursuit, raced his rear- guard through Nancy and Toul, and 
cut off all communication between him and his baffled and be- 
wildered emperor, then waiting at Metz for the result of Bazaine's 
manceuvrings. Bazaine could not strike at the Prussian Third 
Army rushing past his right flank in vehement pursuit of Mac- 
Mahon, for there, with the Second Army, stood the Red Prince 
daring him to try it, and all the time old Steinmetz with his 
superb First Army was beating him back from village to village. 
On the 13th of August Frossard breathlessly reported his arrival 



304 GRAVELOTTE. 

in front of Metz to his new general-in-chief, adding the mourn- 
ful tidings that all Prussia was at his heels; and Bazaine, drawing 
in his lines for one gallant rally on the east bank of the Moselle 
in front of the city, learned, to his dismay, that it was useless 
to fight there. That bold rider, the Red Prince, was crossing 
the river twenty miles above him (to the south) at Pont-a-Mous- 
son. What could that mean ? It flashed upon him quick enough : 
Von Moltke was circling around him from the south ; meant to 
pen him up in Metz, and thus rob France at once and for all of 
the services of her most powerful army. He had not an instant 
to lose. The emperor, taking the boy-prince with him, slipped 
out while there was yet time, leaving to the inhabitants of the 
city an ingenious proclamation, beginning: " On quitting you to 
fight the invaders," and confiding to them the defence of the 
great city of Metz. Bazaine did his best to get his army across 
the Moselle and out of the trap; but while Freidrich Karl with 
the Second Army was sweeping around his right flank, racing 
him over the river, Steinmetz leaped like a panther on the re- 
treating columns before they reached the cover of the forts. The 
Second Army threw its foremost corps up from the south, and 
Bazaine had to turn to fight them off. All day Sunday, the 
14th, the savage battles raged east and south of Metz ; severe 
losses were sustained by both sides, but despite all the devoted 
heroism of the French, those stolid, marvellously disciplined 
Germans pressed on, and by night their left wing was facing 
northward along the heights commanding the great highways 
from Metz to the west. Now Bazaine could not escape that way. 
France woke up to the realization of another most unwelcome 
fact : " Those hated Prussians could fight like the very devil." 
Despite the severity of their losses — despite the absolute slaughter 
of some of their advanced battalions, nothing seemed to check 
their predestined moves. With relentless purpose their corps 
commanders hurled their men at the designated positions, and, 
though thousands might fall, other thousands swarmed over 
them, and weight and numbers told with fatal force. 

The main road from the great city to the greater cities to the 
west runs a tortuous course through rock and ravine- over boldly 



RESISTLESS ADVANXE OF PRUSSIA. 305 

rolling country, among wooded heights and boulder-strewn hill- 
sides until it reaches the town of Gravelotte — eight miles out. 
Here the highway forks, one branch going north of west through 
Conflans, the other through Rezonville, Vionville and Mars la 
Tour to Verdun. This latter road led too to Chalons, and Mac- 
IMahon, and by night of the 14th the Red Prince threatened it 
all along west of Gravelotte. Bazaine determined on a desperate 
effort to beat him off He and the emperor were at the village 
of Gravelotte. Their army was formed in two lines along the 
Conflans road facing the southwest, and on the i6th Bazaine 
hopefully moved Frossard's corps forward towards the lower 
road ; there he was savagely attacked by the advanced divisions 
of the Second Army ; while on this very day the rest of the 
forces of the Red Prince were all up in line and Steinmetz had 
crossed the Moselle with his hard fighting army, the right wing 
pontooning the river below Metz towards Thionville, the left 
wing crossing above and supporting the army of Friedrich Karl. 
All day the combat raged along the Verdun road. Mars la Tour 
and Vionville were turned into charnel houses ; the losses on 
both sides were even greater than on the 14th, but there was no 
shaking off the hold of those relentless Prussians. Night fell 
on thousands of corpses of the magnificent Imperial Guard of 
France, sacrificed in vain effort to regain the road to Verdun 
and Paris. The emperor had slipped away by the other route 
and pushed on to Rheims. The 17th was spent by Bazaine in 
calling in all his troops for another grand effort to beat back the 
Prussian invaders ; by the Germans in concentrating in front of 
and to the west of Gravelotte ; while Steinmetz with the right 
wing of his army was preparing from the north to swoop down 
upon the French rear; and then on the i8th came the great battle 
of Gravelotte. 

First we want to have a look at the general features of the 
field, and for this purpose let us take our stand on the heights 
south of the Verdun highway — south of the little village of 
Vionville, around which there was such desperate fighting two 
days ago. Here let us face eastward, and now we are looking 
towards Metz, lying somewhere down there in the lovely valley 



3o6 GRAVR1.0TTE. 

*.{ the Moselle, but hidden from our sight by a dozen miles 
of billowy upland, of cultivated slopes and ridges, of densely 
wooded ravines. Everywhere, north, south, east and west are 
cosy little hamlets and villages, some nestling down by brook 
sides, some standing boldly on the heights. Stretching nearly 
on a straight line east and west is the broad highway from Metz 
to Verdun, lined and shaded by stately poplars. Criss-crossing 
the landscape are little country roads. Those nearest us run 
down southeastward through that little hamlet of Flavigny to 
Gorze, down on the lowlands of the Moselle. Up those roads 
two days ago came the scores of batteries that the Red Prince 
had thrown across the Moselle. From our point of view there 
is seen a deep fissure or seam across the face of the country a 
mile to the east of us. It is a gorge running north and south. 
On the western brink stands a little town, Rezonville, and here 
the great highway bends northeastward that its descent into the 
gorge may be more gradual. Then up it climbs to the plateau 
on the eastern side, and there is lost in the walls and spires of 
another village. That is Gravelotte. Beyond Gravelotte is 
another black gorge — deeper, darker, steeper than the first; and 
south of Gravelotte and the broad, white ribbon of the highway 
the tilled fields give way to forest. All the huge shoulder of 
the ridge between the two ravines is a mass of green — the people 
call it the "Bois des Ogno?ts," or Onion Wood. Across the 
second and deeper gorge it is called the "Bois de Vaux," after a 
little hamlet that lies close down by the Moselle at the eastern 
edge of the forest. To carry the highway down into this second 
gorge east of Gravelotte and up to the plateau beyond was a 
tax to the engineers ; but the road no sooner reaches the summit 
to the east than it turns sharply southward, passes little Bellevue 
and some big stone quarries, then, more sharply still, turns east- 
ward again, and twisting, turning, doubling on itself, it goes 
winding down past the valley-sheltered roofs of Rozerieulles, 
and is lost to sight under the bluffs of the west bank of the 
Moselle. Mark well that grand plateau east of Gravelotte — east 
of the second gorge, for there is to be the fiercest struggle of 
the day — there is France to make her final stand; and there, 



LOCATION OF THE BATTLE-FIEL£). 307 

before she can crown it with her colors, Prussia must bathe 
every foot of its rugged slopes with the blood of her best and 
bravest. 

No village stands upon its crest — Chatel and Rozerieulles are 
down in the ravines on its eastern slope — but there are two little 
farm enclosures north of the highway — northeast of Gravelotte, 
and, oddly enough, they have been named Leipsic and Moscow, 
names pregnant with disaster to the arms of France. 

Beyond this second plateau we can see little to the east until 
the distant hills across the broad valley of the Moselle loom 
mistily up against the eastern horizon. Southeast we can look 
down towards the flats of the Moselle — toward the wood of 
Gorze, where Prussia had to fight her way inch by inch, shoul- 
dering out the French skirmishers by sheer force of numbers — 
down farther still to the broad blue winding stream fringed 
with its peaceful vineyards and pleasant homes — down towards 
Pont-a-Mousson, twenty odd miles away, with its heavy stone 
bridges and massive walls. And all this lovely landscape is 
alive with Prussia's swarming soldiery; dense columns of in- 
fantry ; gay squadrons of Uhlans or hussars; divisions of heavy 
cavalry ; battery after battery of powerful field-guns and long 
trains of ammunition and provision wagons. Metz was to 
have been France's bulwark against invasion; Prussia scorned 
its frowning guns, and turned it into a prison-pen. 

Looking northeastward, far across this second plateau which 
towers in places one hundred and fifty feet above that of Grave- 
lotte, powerful glasses can make out the lines of fortifications on 
distant heights. Those are the strong permanent works of St. 
Quentin and Plappeville on the bluffs overhanging Metz, and 
not until Bazaine's men are huddled under the shelter of those 
guns will Prussia halt. 

Looking northward we see a gently rolling plateaa, fields, 
farms, copses and country villages. The distant streak of white 
is the northwest fork of the Verdun road, coming down from 
Conflans and into Gravelotte from the north. San Marcel and 
Villers are those two hamlets north of Vionville ; then farther 
away are Verneville, Amanvillers, and beyond them still, perched 



3o8 GRAVELOTTE. 

on seamed and rugged heights, the faintly gHnting spires of St. 
Privat. Mark well that spot, too, for to win it the Royal Guards of 
Prussia have to make the fiercest fight of their history of heroism. 
There is another little hamlet just south of Metz by the same 
name. Do not confound them. The one now pointed out lies 
a good ten miles west of north from Metz, and its full name is 
St. Privat la Montagne. Somewhere in sight of that spire it is 
that fierce old Steinmetz with the right wing of the First Army 
is waiting the signal to come up from his pontoons and assault 
from the north, for now at this moment, dawn of the i8th of 
August, the main force of Prussia faces north along the Verdun 
road, and is to begin a grand wheel across country to the right, 
pivoting down here on " the woods of onions," and as soon as 
the wheel is completed, enveloping distant St. Privat, Steinmetz 
is to finish the circle to the Moselle, and Bazaine will have the 
whole army of Prussia between him and Paris. Cut off from his 
emperor, cut off from McMahon, cut off from every hope of 
reinforcement, this gifted but unfortunate soldier will be cooped* 
up in the lines of Metz. 

And that is the battle-plan of von Moltke the Silent. Now 
let us watch its execution. 

The sun is not yet up. The mists are creeping over the silent 
stream down in the Moselle valley, but the eastern sky is brilliant 
with the hues of summer morning. The air rings with the sig- 
nal notes of trumpet and bugle. All is stirring, soldierly ac- 
tivity. Under the heights on which we stand, dense masses of 
troops are already in motion, and column on column, from 
Rezonville to the east of us, far west beyond Mars la Tour, they 
are pushing northward across the Verdun road. Their front is 
over three miles in extent, and they are moving to seize that 
streak of highway we see some three miles away, the upper 
branch of the Verdun road that runs from Conflans down to the 
junction at Gravelotte. Yesterday the French held it, and it 
was that way that Napoleon and the boy prince escaped. 

This northward moving army is the grand command of the 
Red Prince, Friedrich Karl. The Ninth corps is on the right, 
the Twelfth on the distant left, passing through Mars la Tour, 




COUNT VON MOLTKE. (B. Berthold.) 

"THE SJLEJST" 



THE FRENCH FALLING BACK. 31I 

the gallant Guards corps is in the centre. In reserve, or in the 
second line, are the Tenth and Third corps, the latter having 
borne the brunt of the stubborn fighting of the i6th. East of 
us, between Rezonville and Gravelotte and facing towards Metz, 
are the long lines of the First Army — Steinmetz's people; though 
he himself, with a large portion of his command, is far to th<' 
north, as we have said. These forces facing Gravelotte are the 
First, Seventh and Eighth corps, and their lines stretch far down 
to the southeast of our position. 

Crowning the opposite heights, stretching from the forest of 
Vaux on their left (our right) up through Gravelotte to Verne- 
ville far to the north of us, and then bending back, sweeping 
northeastward through Amanvillers and St. Privat, are the French. 
For seven days, with most desperate valor and against grievous 
odds, they have been fighting and falling back. Now, so disheart- 
ened are they, that all the gladness and gayety of their race has 
fled. When Napoleon drove away through their lines so short a 
time before, not a cheer would they raise even for young Louis, 
at whose tranquillity under fire they wept but a fortnight since. 
But they will fight, and fight to the death. Frossard and Le- 
boeuf with their corps hold the heights around Gravelotte. Well 
back of the centre is the Imperial Guard, severely reduced after 
its savage fight of the second day before. Farther to the north, 
near Verneville, the heights are held by the Fourth corps of 
Bazaine's army under L'Admirault, while Canrobert, with the 
Sixth, guards Amanvillers and St. Privat. Bazaine must have 
at least 100,000 men in line, and probably 20,000 more in re- 
serve. 

Against him, the forces of United Germany muster fully 220,- 
000, with no less than 600 guns. France fights on the defensive 
with every advantage of position, for her guns and mitrailleuses 
sweep all possible approaches, but Germany fighti with relent- 
less force and with scientific precision. It must be beyond all 
question the greatest battle of a great war. 

At seven o'clock the combined forces of the Second and 
^ourth Armies have reached the Conflans road, the Guards 
and the Twelfth corps passing west of Doncourt. Here, back 
50 



312 GRAVELOTTE. 

of Rezonville, on a little knoll, are gathered the headquarters' 
party of the King of Prussia. Von Moltke is still here, and Bis- 
marck, and the Red Prince has not yet galloped northward to 
take immediate charge of the battle in that quarter. Here too 
stands our own gallant general, Sheridan, an eager and vividly 
interested spectator; and all eyes are turned to the gorge in 
front of Rezonville, along whose brink scores of batteries are 
silently awaiting the order to commence firing. The men of 
the Seventh and Eighth corps are ordered to threaten the posi- 
tion of the French along the Gravelotte ridge, but it is not to be 
a determined attack until those northward moving troops have 
completed that great wheel to the right. It may take most of 
the day. 

Still there is sharp and lively fighting going on down here to 
our right front. The woods are ringing with the crash of mus- 
ketry, while from the Gravelotte ridge the French batteries are 
storming away at the Prussian columns on the lower plateau of 
Rezonville. Then the German gunners get the word, leap in 
and unlimber, and in another moment the earth shakes with the 
steady thunder of their cannonade. Skirmishers too are pushing 
down into the ravine and feeling their way up the opposite 
.?lope, and wherever their reserves appear, the " growling whirr" 
of the mitrailleuses tells of the efforts of the French to break 
them up with streams of bullets. 

Except for the skirmishers, however, all this is long-range 
fighting. The Prussian fire is slow, deliberate, but fearfully tell- 
ing, despite the awkwardness of up-hill aiming, and the French 
shells are bursting everywhere over Rezonville and through the 
" Bois des Ognons." And now the king decides it time for the 
Seventh corps to clear that forest, cross the ravines, and assault 
from the south, the forest and slopes of Vaux. It is the strong- 
est part of the French line, and, once carried, renders their hold 
on Gravelotte no longer of value. But however possible it may 
be for this massive and disciplined Prussian corps to sweep the 
Onion Woods of the French light troops, things will assume a 
different aspect when they work their way over to that black 
gorge between the shoulder of the Gravelotte ridge and the high 



BAZAINE BATTERED OUT OF GRAVELOTTE. 313 

bluffs beyond. This second ravine turns eastward in front of 
the Onion Woods, about a mile and a half south of Gravelotte, 
and empties into the Moselle valley at the little town of Ars, and 
the rounded shoulder of those eastern bluffs is seamed with tier 
on tier of rifle-pits, with mitrailleuses in battery, with guns upon 
guns, for Bazaine and Frossard, at first, were of opinion that the 
Red Prince would make an attempt to storm these heights as 
soon as he crossed the Moselle. 

Just at noon, while the Seventh corps is crashing northeast- 
ward through the Onion Woods, and the Eighth corps with a 
score of German batteries holds Frossard at Gravelotte and 
prevents his sending aid to the left of his line, there come from 
the north spurring messengers with the glad tidings that the 
Ninth corps has faced eastward, and is driving the French 
through Verneville. Great clouds of battle-smoke rising over 
the distant trees and drifting tow^ards the Moselle confirm the 
tidings. But for the fierce thunder of our guns we could hear 
the cannonade and the wild cheering up towards Amanvillers. 

And now every battery within hailing distance seems suddenly 
to receive orders to open fire on the French in and around 
Gravelotte, and for half an hour that crest flames with bursting 
shells and the flashes of its own guns. Gallantly as the French- 
men stick to their work, Prussia has here perhaps four guns to 
their one, and the fire is fearful. The German artillerists have 
the exact range, and now pour in that infernal " schnellfeuer " 
(quick fire) for which they are famous, and it is soon evident 
that Frossard's men can stand it no longer. Whole batteries 
are silenced or disabled, and those that can be limbered up and 
run off, are rapidly leaving the plateau. Dragged by hand or 
by the remaining horses, the French guns are being run across 
the second gorge to the stronger heights beyond. Bazaine is 
battered out of Gravelotte. 

Splendidly he handles his retiring men. First the guns are 
hauled back and placed in battery on the great plateau, while the 
long ranks of infantry secure their safe removal. Then, at half- 
past one, the last serviceable gun being across, the battle-lines 
slowly fall back, covered by dense clouds of skirmishers, and just 



314 gravelotte. 

as the Seventh Prussian corps bursts cheering across the lower 
gorge between the wood of Vaux and the south, the Eighth 
corps "ploys into column" by the heads of brigades, its guns 
and those of the Third corps limber up and go rumbling off across 
the little valley, and at three o'clock the whole Prussian line 
has advanced a mile. The batteries are now ranged in line from 
north to south with burning Gravelotte for the centre, and the 
Eighth corps has joined hands once more with the Seventh. 
The Fpench are swept from their first position, but now they are 
massed on one ten times as strong. 

Once more the tremendous booming of the cannonade bursts 
on the ear. King William well knows that the assault of those 
opposite heights must cost him many thousand men, and he 
must do all he can with his guns to beat down the French 
defenders before sending in his infantry. For hours a steady 
stream of footmen pours through the Bois des Ognons to reinforce 
the Prussian right wing, and until heavily reinforced, no further 
advance can be attempted. The king and his staff have pushed 
forward to a height back of Gravelotte, and are watching this 
coming of General Goben's men. Between four and five, Ba- 
zaine orders all available guns to concentrate their fire on those 
teeming woods. No more troops must be allowed to come to 
Prussia's aid that way. They must be stooped, and they are. 
Such a hell of fire rains on those wood-paths, that the Prussians 
are driven to the shelter of the ravines, and, for the time being, 
France is successful. The losses are appalling. 

But the Germans in winning Gravelotte have complete evi- 
dence of the heroism of the French, and of the superiority of 
their own artillery. The plateau is littered with shattered gun-car- 
riages, and black with the bodies of slaughtered men and horses. 
The Frenchmen have died by hundreds in its defence. Now 
they deluge it with their own missiles, and the winners have to 
take their turn. From four to six o'clock, not a peg does Prus- 
sia gain on that front ; but good news comes from the north. 
The Ninth corps has hurled back I'Admirault, and the Royal 
Guards, after a fierce and bloody struggle, have carried the 
heights of St. Privat ; and now, with the Twelfth corps and the 



THE FRENCH RIGHT ENVELOVED. 315 

Saxon Guards on his extreme left, the Red Pruice has enveloped 
the French right, and is crowding it in towards Metz. Can- 
robert, overwhelmed by the combined forces of Friedrich Karl 
and Steinmetz, is falling back in great distress and after severe 
losses, but fighting bravely all the way. 

At six P. M. the German line is a vast semi-circle, completely 
enveloping Metz on the west. The French, little by little, have 
been forced back, and their front, convex towards the west, is 
now really stronger than before. Thus far the hardest and 
fiercest fighting has been at St. Privat, whose slopes are littered 
with the dead of the Prussian Guards ; but now comes the 
slaughter of Gravelotte. t^ncouraged by the news from his 
left, King William orders the assault of the stronghold of Ba- 
zaine. 

Directly in front of Gravelotte the highway dips down into 
the gorge, then hews its way up the opposite steep through al- 
most vertical walls of rock until it reaches the little farm hamlet 
of St. Hubert at the crest. North and south of this cut, the 
banks are steep and rugged. The farther south you go, the 
deeper and steeper is the gorge. Every foot of the eastern side 
is manned by French artillerists and riflemen. All down tow- 
ards the south the rifle-pits overhang one another. It is a des- 
perate undertaking. It seems unnecessary. It looks as though 
King William, with his superiority in guns, must soon be able 
to shell the French out of their burrows on that broad-backed 
ridge. But night is coming on. Time may be precious. Per- 
haps he wishes to teach the French that Prussians will stop at 
nothing, though old Steinmetz did that most convincingly at 
Spicheren Heights. Who knows ? The order is given, and 
with devoted bravery the infantry lines spring forward and ad- 
vance cheering to the attack. For a few moments, only the 
distant batteries of the Germans can use their guns. The 
Frenchmen train their cannon on the advancing columns and 
lines, and in a few moments the roar of battle out-deafens 
Gettysburg. Six hundred field-guns here are thundering away 
all at once, for as the Prussian lines sweep forward the battery- 
men are able to fire over their heads. Once in the ravine they are 



3i6 gravelott£ 

partially sheltered, but when their helmeted heads begin to pce» 
over the crests beyond, the butchering begins. Even up thctt 
narrow slit of highway, one brave regiment is daring to push its 
advance, and its entire length is swept by Frossard's guns. 
The attempt is madness. Far to the front their officers leap, 
cheering on their men, pointing with their white-gloved left 
hands at the guns above, but grasping with their bared right their 
flashing swords. Down they go, officers and men, under the 
pitiless storm of grape and canister ; down they go before the 
smiting blast of the mitrailleuse. The faster the lines reach the 
crest and push ahead, the more terrible grows the slaughter. 
Still they push forward into the face of those flaming earthworks, 
leaving, by scores and hundreds, stricken or struggling beings 
in their wake. Most of the fallen lie still ; some struggle to 
their feet and plunge on after their comrades ; some stumble 
painfully a few yards, then down they go again — but none come 
back. Forward ! Forward ! is the only order, and yet, to what 
good ? They have yet three — four hundred yards to traverse 
before they can cross bayonets with the sheltered lines of France, 
and by that time, what will be left of them ? What strength 
will they have after that fearful climb? The French deluge 
them with musketry. The whole thing is a sacrifice, and there 
are American soldiers looking on who remember the assault on 
Resaca, or the last charge of Pickett. Old von Moltke can 
stand it no longer, and sends his aides to order the recall, but, 
before the officers can gallop to the ravine, the advance ^s 
'stemmed, the leading lines have melted away, the second is 
breaking up, the third wavering, and then back they come, and 
after them with wild, exultant cheering, the French brigades of 
Valaze and Jolivet — the counter-charging lines of Frossard. 

North of the highway, too, Bazaine's old Third corps, now 
led by Lebceuf, hurls back the Prussian Eighth, and now, indeed, 
there is need for prompt action. Even the German reserves 
have been involved, and for some few moments a veritable stam- 
pede occurs — an unusual thing among troops so marvellously 
disciplined. 

The old king is looking on the scene of confusion with terri- 



-^ 




GERMAN DISASTER TURNED TO VICTORY. 319 

ble anxiety. Bismarck is in a state of nervous excitement, and 
wild with eagerness to go in person to the front. Von Moltke, 
old as he is, has leaped into saddle and galloped off to stem the 
rout. Staff-officers spur in every direction to reform and 
straighten out the lines as they come drifting back across the 
ravine. But the assault is turned to repulse. The Prussian 
right is whipped — badly whipped, and if not promptly supported, 
Bazaine will sweep it from the field ; for now, in the wild elan 
and enthusiasm of their charge, tirailleur diWd Turco, Zouave and 
'' Piou-piou" "^ come surging on in close pursuit — the whole 
French left is advancing in full confidence of victory. 

What stops their triumphant course ? It is barely seven 
o'clock. It will be light enough for fighting two full hours yet. 
They have got the Germans fairly started on the run, and close 
following will keep them at it unless strong reserves are at their 
back; and at six o'clock the plateau of Rezonville, behind them, 
was bare of troops. Why do their bugles sound the halt ? Why 
are the fire-flashing lines brought to a stand with the setting sup 
glaring in their faces and burnishing their heated arms ? 

Look behind Rezonville, and there is the answer. 

Long lines of dusty, travel-worn infantry ; nimbly handled 
batteries of field-artillery ; whole regiments of dragoons, are 
issuing from the wood-roads south of Vionville, and, as though 
snuffing the battle from afar, deploying right and left as they 
come, they sweep out upon the open plain, covered as it is with 
the dead and dying of the morning's battle. 

It is the Second corps of Friedrich Karl's army, that has been 
marching all the livelong day to reach the field, and now comes 
upon the scene at sunset, to turn, like Sheridan at Cedar Creek, 
a dire disaster into matchless victory. 

Von Moltke himself spurs to meet and welcome them, to 
urge them forward into the fray, and their breathless comrades 
of the Seventh and Eighth corps, taking heart once more at 
sight of their coming, face again towards the blazing heights 
across the gorge, and determine on another dash. No time is 
lost. Von Moltke is all alive with vehement determination 

*A soldier-name for the French infantryman of the line regiments. 
18 



320 GRAVELOTTE. 

now, and once more orders the assault. With one grand im- 
pulse the combined corps leap forward in renewed attack. The 
French, far in front of their works, are taken at disadvantage. 
They recoil — face to the foe — before superior numbers, and 
when at last they regain their rifle-pits and batteries, the cheering 
Prussians are tumbling in among them. The crest is crowned 
by the light of the burning villages, for the sun has gone down 
upon the scene of carnage, and darkness settles over the hard- 
fought field. Nine o'clock has come, and despite fearful pun- 
ishment, despite losses that have left some regiments ahr.ost 
without an officer and reduced to one-tenth their morning 
strength, the Germans have carried the heights in their front, 
and along the entire semi-circle the Army of France has suffered 
defeat. 

Von Zastrow with the Seventh corps and the supporting col- 
umns of General Goben hold the woods of Vaux from the crest 
at "Point du Jour" — or Bellevue — up the road beyond St. 
Hubert's, down southward through the great quarry, and so on 
around eastward to the village of Vaux. On the great plateau 
around St. Hubert's and northward to the Moscow farm, the 
bulk of the shattered Eighth corps is resting on its arms after 
its tremendous double effort. In storming the position of St. 
Hubert's six solid regiments of infantry, any one of them as 
large as the effective fighting strength of one of our brigades 
during the civil war, were so cruelly cut up, that mere shreds of 
their organization remain. Fortunate it was for Germany that 
those Pomeranians of the Second corps arrived when they did. 
Fortunate for the Eighth and Ninth corps that they had such 
stout backers as old Albensleben with the hard fighters of the 
Third. 

All along the great crest are smouldering the ruins of farm- 
cottages, hamlets and homes. All along through the thronged 
villages the beaten Frenchmen are drawing back their lines for 
refuge under the guns of St. Quentin and Plappeville. Far to 
the north the Red Prince follows up the retiring columns, and 
posts his pickets in plain sight of the watch-fires under the forts. 
Far to the south the men of von der Goltz's brigade are shout- 



FRIGHTFUL LOSSES ON BOTIf SIDE? 321 

ing congratulation from the heights of jnssy and Vaux to their 
cavalry comrades across the Moselle. 

But in the darkness and distance buck of Gravelotte, all is still 
anxiety. Here on a rude railing, stretched across the body of a 
French horse, the King of Prussia sits in silent torment. He 
knows that thousands of his men have fallen in the desperate 
fighting of the day ; he cannot yet tell to what result. The 
thunder of the guns has died away; only scattering volleys now 
are heard. Near by, a large factory is in flames, and the kiup 
and his staff are grouped around a garden wall on the eastern 
skirts of Rezonville. Near the king are his tried and trusted 
ministers, Bismarck and von Roon. Von Moltke is still absent 
at the front, and all are waiting eagerly for his report. Presently, 
guided by the shouts of the escort and guards, two horsemen 
urge their panting steeds up the slope^ and von Moltke springs 
from the saddle and salutes his soldier-monarch : " Please your 
majesty, we have conquered ; we have driven the enemy out of all 
his positions ; " and then, at last, anxiety gives way to triumphant 
joy. Gravelotte is won. Bazaine penned up in Metz. The 
greatest of her regular and disciplined armies is lost to France. 

In the three days' battling around Metz, in those bloody en- 
gagements of the 14th, 1 6th and iSth of August, Bazaine has 
sustained losses aggregating between 12,000 and 15,000 killed, 
and 50,000 wounded and prisoners. Germany of course has 
lost few prisoners, but, in one tremendous effort, in that supreme 
struggle of the i8th of August, in that bloody but finally suc- 
cessful battle to cut off the great French army from the rest of 
France, Prussia and her confederate sisters lose no less than 
25,000 in killed and wounded, against the 19,000 lost to France 
that day. 

Gravelotte was the greatest battle of the war, but it by no 
means ended it. The Emperor Napoleon, with his boy prince, 
reached MacMahon at Chalons on the 17th. They had great 
difficulty and narrow escapes, for the Prussians hounded them 
along their way ; but once at Chalons with its immense camp, 
the emperor seems to have resolved on measures to rescue Ba- 
zaine. The empress at Paris, now regent of France, and her 



322 GRAVELOTTE. 

ministers in council decided that this step must be taken. There 
were by this time 600,000 German troops in France. Both the 
emperor and MacMahon are said to have believed it impossible 
to cut out Bazaine against such a force, and their going back to 
his aid left the road to Paris open to the crown prince and the 
Third army, which was marching steadily westward from Nancy 
to Chalons. Practicable or not, the move was demanded by the 
government at Paris, who thought the vast army of " Gardes 
Mobiles," now being raised and equipped by Trochu, could fight 
back any force of Prussians that might threaten the walls. 

On August 2 1 St MacMahon broke camp and marched north- 
ward towards Rheims ; his idea being to make forced marches 
up through the Argonne hills — cross the Meuse west of Mont- 
medy and swoop down, by way of Thionville, on the Prussians 
encircling Metz. In other words, he meant to make a wide swing 
through the country, so as to avoid direct conflict with the Ger- 
mans pressing westward after him, and save his strength for the 
attempt to release Bazaine. Could he once more unite with him 
there was hope for France. 

Meantime, leaving the Red Prince to completely surround and 
hold Bazaine in Metz, the king with his faithful generals, the 
Fourth corps, the Saxons and the Guards, pushed on after the 
crown prince. On the 24th the advance of the Germans found 
Chalons deserted, and flashed back word to the king, then at 
Bar-le-Duc, that MacMahon had gone northward with his whole 
army. 

Von Moltke was engaged that night in his customary game of 
whist. All about him was disciplined silence and order. In an 
adjoining room his maps were spread open upon the tables ; 
aides-de-camp and staff'-ofiicers were noiselessly at work, while 
the great head of all, having so perfected his system that each 
man had his allotted task for so many hours of the twenty-four, 
was now enjoying his one relaxation with the three officers who 
were that night designated to make up the game. The entry of 
an aide-de-camp indicated important despatches. Von Moltke 
laid down his cards, read the paper through without a word, 
took it with him into the adjoining room, glanced at his maps, 




UAESHAL MACMAHON, DUKE OF MAGENTA, 



MACMAHON AT SEDAN. 



325 



wrote a brief note to the king, and returned to his game as 
though nothing had happened. 

And yet, in that matter-of-fact method, he had issued the orders 
changing the whole plan of campaign. Early the next morning 
the German armies were striking northward, and that with the 
king was still keeping vigilantly between MacMahon and Metz. 
On the 29th the French were fighting with the Saxons for a 
chance to cross the Meuse, and getting the worst of it. On the 
30th a savage battle took place, the verj^ thing MacMahon 
wished to avoid, and numbers of guns and prisoners were lost to 
the French ; but on the 31st the Germans, still between him and 
Metz, were hammering him back down the Meuse and into the 
fortified city of Sedan. MacMahon had still with him over loo,- 
000 men and 400 guns, and at and around Sedan he was brought 
to bay. All day of the 31st of August he found the German 
armies more closely enfolding him. Morning of September ist 
found his army posted in the low-lying valley east of the Meuse, 
and surrounding the city of Sedan. General de Wimpffen, just 
arrived from Algeria, was commanding the Fifth corps in and 
close under the eastern fortifications. Lebrun with the Twelfth 
corps held the lines from the village of Bazeilles, south of Sedan, 
to a point due east of the city, where Ducrot with the First 
corps took up and prolonged the front to Givonne, a village 
northeast of Sedan. Then the line bent back at a right angle 
and stretched across to the Meuse to the west. This front was 
held by Felix Douay with the Seventh corps (his brother, Abel 
Douay, was killed at Weissenburg), and passing through the vil- 
lage of Floing, was supported on the left by heavy divisions of 
cavalry. 

At sev^en a. m. the Prussian army was confronting the Frenchi 
east, west, and south of Sedan — the First Bavarian corps and 
the Fourth and Twelfth corps on the east ; the Fifth and 
Eleventh corps, with heavy masses of cavalry, marching up througl 
Donchery, on a deep bend of the Meuse, to the west, and aiming 
to sweep around the French to the north from the west, while 
the Guards of Prussia and Saxony swung round to meet them 
and complete the circle from the east, South of the city and 



326 GRAVELOTTE. 

across the Meuse, the commanding heights were held by the 
Second Bavarian corps and the Wurtembergers. Every height 
was crowded with guns ; and from early dawn a pitiless storm 
of shot and shell rained on the unfortunate Frenchmen. Little 
by little, despite the fiercest and bravest fighting, they were 
hemmed in and driven back ; village after village was wrested 
from them by the Germans ; at two p. m. the circle was completed. 
Two hundred and fifty thousand Germans surrounded less than 
half that many Frenchmen. MacMahon, severely wounded, 
turned over the command to Wimpfifen; and Napoleon III., de- 
spairing and broken-hearted, sent General Reille to the Prussian 
king. 

" Not having been able to die at the head of my troops," wrote 
the sensational emperor (though it is to this day not apparent 
that he sought death " at the head of his troops " or any other 
point), " I lay down my sword to your majesty." Napoleon had 
bowed the knee to Prussia. Jena was avenged. 

The next day was marked by the surrender of the great army 
in and around Sedan. There were turned over to Prussia 
100,000 men and 400 guns, seventy mitrailleuses and 10,000 
horses ; and the fallen emperor was conducted a prisoner to 
the castle of Wilhelmshohe. In a brief campaign of thirty days, 
therefore, the genius of von Moltke and the marvellous disci- 
pline and system of Prussian arms, had enabled her king to cut 
in twain, then to rout and, in detail, to ruin the great army as- 
sembled on the frontier for the avowed invasion of the Father- 
land. The regular army of France was gone. 

Now there was nothing to prevent the triumphant march of 
Prussia on Paris. On September 27th General Uhrich surren- 
dered Strasburg with all its garrison, guns and stores ; and on 
October 29th Bazaine, starved out, he claimed, capitulated with 
his great command at Metz. Afterwards, France tried and con- 
victed him on charges of treason, as his provisions were not ex- 
hausted by any means ; but it is only fair to say that he had 
made one or two fierce, but ineffectual, efforts to fight his way 
^ out, and succumbed only to the inevitable. 

Strasburg and Metz cost France nearly 200,000 more men, 



FRANCE'S EXTREME HUMILIATION. 327 

nearly 2,500 guns, sixty-six mitrailleuses, and over 300,000 
Chassepots. Bereft of her regular army, France drove out the 
empress and her adherents, and fought under republican colors 
with devoted heroism to the final close of the war. Paris was 
taken by siege and starvation, after a long and courageous de- 
fence, and by February, 1 87 1 , the people gave up the fight. To 
her infinite chagri n , France struck her colors to the hated Prussians. 
As the results of this great war, the French forfeited to Ger- 
many 6,200 square miles of territory in the provinces of Alsace 
and Lorraine, the fortresses of Metz and Strasburg, and were 
condemned to pay a war indemnity of 5,000,000,000 francs within 
three years (and astonished Prussia by doing it with comparative 
ease). She lost some 10,000 cannon and 500,000 prisoners, be- 
sides her terrible list of killed and wounded. As further results, 
France became a great and growing and prosperous republic, 
Germany an empire, with her grand old Prussian king as Kaiser. 



PLEVNA. 




1877. 

UROPE settled down into a period of rest after 
the conflict between France and Germany, but 
it was not long before the attention of all Chris- 
tian nations was drawn to the borders of the 
infidel monarchy — Turkey. For years, the peo- 
ple of one of the Danube provinces — Bulgaria — ■■ 
had been subjected by the Mussulman Turks 
to all manner of indignities growing out of the 
differences in their religious faith, if indeed the so-called " Faith- 
ful" of the Mohammedan sect are entitled to the term " religious 
faith" as applied to their peculiar belief These indignities, 
despite the protests of neighboring powers, grew worse, as though 
goaded on by interference, and ere long became outrages of the 
most flagrant kind. Murder, rapine, and brutality of every de- 
scription were dealt out to the wretched people under the eye of 
the officials and the soldiery of Turkey. Even America sent 
her representative to inquire into the facts, and the country has 
not yet forgotten the fearful picture drawn by Mr. Eugene Schuy- 
ler — now our minister at the court of Greece. It was in no de- 
gree exaggerated ; and all Christendom seemed to realize that 
the policy of non-interference could no longer be extended to 
Turkey. In the spring of 1877, Russia called her to account, 
and the followers of the Greek Church took up arms against the 
followers of the Prophet. 

Outside of any consideration of revenge for Turkey's success 
in the war of i854-'55, it was more natural that Russia should 
become the champion of the oppressed people of the Danube val- 
ley than that the duty should fall to the nations to the west, though 
338 




OEAND 



j)UKE NICHOLAS OF RUSSIA- 



■] 



BULGARIA AND WALLACHIA. 331 

it was at one time thought that Austria, too, would have taken a 
hand. The great river sweeps on in a general eastward course 
after bursting through the Iron Gates, and, leaving Austria behind, 
flows toward the Black Sea. When within forty miles of the 
coast it turns suddenly to the north near the city of Tcherna- 
voda, runs squarely up to Galatz near the Russian border, and 
then, making another rectangular turn, this time to the east, it 
flows through its broad delta into the Black Sea. 

Around this delta and all along the left bank live a people far 
more Russian in their tastes, sympathies, habits,, and religious 
belief than Turkish. On the right bank live the Bulgarians, a 
people but faintly removed in their views from the Wallachians. 
Between them and Turkey proper, to the south, upheaved the 
great wall of the Balkan Mountains ; and this natural barrier 
between the countries was but typical of the broad line of demar- 
cation between them as people. Bulgaria was Turkey's by right 
of conquest, and was held only by force of arms. South of the Bal- 
kans, down to the shores of the yEgean, all is distinctively Turk- 
ish, and the portion of Turkish domain we.st of the Bosphorus, 
the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmora is sometimes known as 
Turkey in Europe. These are the straits and the inland sea that 
form the great channel to the Black Sea farther north. East of 
them lies Turkey in Asia, stretching far over through Armenia 
and Koordistan until it is bordered on the northeast by the Cau- 
casus of Russia, and on the east by Persia. Close to the Rus- 
sian border lies the city of Kars, where, as well as at Erzeroum 
to the west of it, the Muscovite and Mussulman had many a 
fierce grapple. 

It is with the campaign in the Danube valley that we have 
most to do however, and thither let us turn our eyes. The events 
of that short and sharp encounter are so fresh in the minds of 
many readers that there can be little of novelty in the descrip- 
tion to be given here. All the great military nations of the 
world sent representatives to the scene, and every battle, siege, 
and skirmish was vividly described by scores of masterly writers; 
but while the columns of the London journals teemed with 
graphic accounts from such famed war correspondents as Archi- 



S3^ PLEVNA. 

bald Forbes and Messrs. MacGahan, Millet, and Grant, it has been 
reserved for a gallant young officer of our own army to furnish a 
history of this memorable war that has been translated and read 
all over tbe globe, and is pronounced by all authorities a most 
admirable and comprehensive work. To those of our readers 
who wish to fully study the " Russian Campaigns in Turkey, 
1 877-1 878," the large volume by that title, written by Lieutenant 
Francis V. Greene, of the Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, is es- 
.pecially commended, and to that work mainly is the writer of 
these sketches indebted for the details recounted in this chapter. 

The valley of the Danube is bounded on the north by the 
Carpathian Mountains, which sweep around and take a south- 
ward trend, are cut through by the river at the Iron Gates and 
are lost in the rugged uplands of Servia. South of the river and 
parallel to its general eastward course is the Balkan range, and 
from these two great ribs or ridges — from range to range — there 
is a general distance of 200 miles. Northeast of the Carpathians 
lie the rolling, treeless " steppes" of Russia. South of the Car- 
pathians their foothills roll away down into the valley some fifty 
miles, and from that line to the river itself all is one flat, open 
level — well watered but bare of trees. South of the Danube, 
however, the Balkans send their slopes down to end in abrupt 
bluffs at the water's edge, and these bluffs are often from 500 to 
1,000 feet in height. The Bulgarian shores are picturesque, roll- 
ing, well wooded, and cut up by rich and fertile valleys. Where 
the Danube turns abruptly northward at Tchernavoda it leaves 
to the east a rectangular tract of barren country known as the 
Dobrudja, and across the narrow neck of the Dobrudja are the 
remains of the old Roman wall built by Trajan to keep out bar- 
baric invaders from the north. 

Into this valley from the north there come two lines of rail- 
way which unite at the important city of Galatz, where the river 
makes its last eastward turn before rolling into the sea, and from 
Galatz a single line stretches southwest to Bucharest, then south 
to the Danube, which it crosses to Rustchuk, and then winds off 
eastward again to Turkey's great naval station and port on the 
Black Sea — Varna. The railway from Russia to Galatz and 



RUSSIA DECLAIIES WAR. 333 

thence to Bucharest was the line along which Russia had to send 
her supplies, for the Black Sea swarmed with the powerful arma- 
ment of the Turkish navy. 

On April 24th, 1877, the Tsar of Russia declared war against 
Turkey. He stated that for two years he and all the Christian 
powers of Europe had striven in vain to induce the Porte (as the 
government at Constantinople is termed) " to introduce those 
reforms to which it was solemnly bound by previous engage- 
ments, and by which alone the Christians in Turkey could be 
protected from local exaction and extortion ; that these negotia- 
tions had all failed through the obstinac)- of tiie Porte ; and 
now, all peaceful methods being exhausted, the moment had 
arrived for him to act independently and impose his will upon 
the Turks by force ; and therefore the order had been given to 
his army to cross the Turkish frontier." 

At this moment Turkey had about 250,000 troops in readiness 
for war, and of these, 165,000 were close at hand and available 
for duty along the Danube. Against these Russia thought 
herself able to conduct an offensive campaign with only 200,000 
men — and in this she was mistaken. Instead of profiting by 
the example of Prussia and sending instantly an overwhelming 
force to the frontier, she doled out her resources by driblets, and 
suffered losses and delays that better counsels and generalship 
would have averted. By August, the Turks had 225,000 fight- 
ing men along the European theatre of war, and Russia had to 
call for her reserves. 

The "Army of the South," Russia's first invading force, was 
placed under the command of the Grand Duke Nicholas. It 
consisted of seven army corps, and two brigades of rifles. Each 
Russian army corps consisted of two divisions (24 battalions) of 
infantry, two brigades (96 guns) of mounted artillery, and one 
division (18 squadrons) of cavalry, with two horse-batteries (12 
guns). The invading army consisted, therefore, of about 180 
battalions, 200 squadrons and 800 guns ; and by the time this 
force could reach the Danube, the ordinary casualties of service 
would be more than apt to reduce it to 180,000 effectives. 

But Russian infantry is admirable. No firmer, steadier, more 



334 PLBRTfA. 

reliable foot-troops can be found. They are thoroughly drilled 
and disciplined, are docile and obedient, and devoted to their 
tsar. They are comfortably and sensibly uniformed, are not 
heavily burdened with useless camp-equipage, and when in line 
or in mass, their courage and stability are proverbial. It is as 
skirmishers and light troops that the Russian infantry lack 
mtelligence. The Russian foot-soldier seems to have no indi- 
viduality, and is helpless without the guiding hand of his officer. 

Not of a much brighter class is the Russian cavalry or artil- 
leryman. All are faithful and subservient, but the element of 
" dash," so conspicuous in our own and the Franco-Prussian 
war, seems to have had little more place in the rank and file of 
Russia than it had at Inkerman and Balaclava. 

While in point of service-dress and equipment the Russian 
regulars were fully up to the needs of the campaign, their weap- 
ons were clumsy and inadequate. The infantry arm at the out- 
break of the war was an altered musket — an old muzzle-loading 
rifle converted to a breech-loader by the system of an Austrian 
armorer named Krenk. The mechanism consisted of a block 
turning on an axis parallel to that of the bore, and locked by 
heavy shoulders of metal on the breech piece ; but the gun was 
of antiquated calibre (60), larger than the Springfield rifles we 
used in 1862, and, with its bayonet, the gun weighed 10^ 
pounds, while forty rounds of cartridges weighed 5^ pounds. 
Its extreme range was only about 1,200 paces, a pitiful arm 
indeed as compared with the rifles of other nations. Yet this 
was the musket with which the Russian footman had to fight 
his way to the walls of Constantinople. 

In field-artillery, too, Russia was far behind other European 
powers. Her guns were of bronze, too soft a metal for sharp 
rifling, and not until the war was over did she obtain from the 
great Krupp factory the steel breech-loaders with which her 
batteries are now supplied. The guns of the mounted batteries 
(those which accompanied the infantry) were half of them nine- 
pounders — half four-pounders. Three batteries of each calibre to 
a brigade, eight guns to a battery. The horse-batteries were all 
four-pounders, six guns to each. All the field-guns w^ere breech- 



THE COSSACKS AS LIGHT CAVALRY. 2>Z7 

loaders, and the extreme range of the largest was 5,000 yards, 
the smallest 3,800 yards. 

In cavalry, the Russian army was well represented. Each 
division of the line consisted of four regiments, one each of 
dragoons, lancers, hussars and Cossacks. The guard divisions 
had also fine regiments of cuirassiers. The dragoons were 
armed with sabre, musket and bayonet ; the lancers and hussars 
with sabre, lance and revolver in the front rank; sabre, musket 
and revolver in the rear rank. The Cossacks carried the lance, 
the " schaska " (a sharp, single-edged, curved sword) and the 
carbine. The American Smith and Wesson revolver was uni- 
versal. 

These Cossacks deserve a word of special mention. As light 
cavalry they have few superiors except among the Sioux and 
Cheyenne Indians of our northern plains, who are unequalled 
anywhere. They form a recognized corps of the regular army, 
and yet are more like irregulars in their own way of fighting and 
management. No pay is given them. They perform military ser- 
vice in lieu of paying taxes — four years on the active list and away 
from home eight years with the reserves in their own province. 
The Don Cossacks are the most numerous and the best trained, 
a full regiment of them being attached to each division of regu- 
lar cavalry. The government supplies their arms and ammuni- 
tion, but the Cossacks themselves provide their horses, clothing 
and equipments. For rations and forage a certain sum is paid 
them from which they make all necessary purchases ; but their 
wants are few, and their shaggy, hardy little horses are as om- 
nivorous and easily satisfied as Indian ponies, which they re- 
semble in many characteristics. Lieutenant Greene says of the 
Cossacks that " they are fine horsemen, expert swimmers, good 
shots and skillful boatmen," and that those of the Caucasus are 
extremely bold riders, training " their horses to lie down and 
keep quiet while they fire over them, and then to get up quickly 
and go ofif at rapid gallop." They do not need to be held or 
tied, but their riders can at any time spring off and leave them 
to look out for themselves while the Cossacks are drilling or 
fighting on foot, and when wanted, the horses will be found just 
19 



33^ fLEVNA. 

about where they were left. All this is precisely the system of 
our plains Indians, and no regular cavalry in the world can dc; 
anything like it. 

A Cossack regiment is equipped and uniformed in a semi-bar- 
baric style that is picturesque and yet serviceable. The bridle is 
as simple as the Mexican affair — a leather head-stall without 
buckles, but provided with only a snaffle bit. The saddle, like 
that of the Sioux Indians, is a tree of light wood, with high and 
abrupt pommel and cantle, very short in the seat ; but unlike our 
Indians, or any civilized horsemen, the Cossacks strap a cushion 
on their saddles and sit some six or eight inches higher than the 
horse's back, so that their feet never show below his body. The 
uniform is a dark blue jacket, plain and snug, without ornaments 
of any kind, and the cap is a cylindrical tower of black leather, 
nine inches high. The linesman or regular is a helpless creature 
when left to shift for himself He expects every detail to be ar- 
ranged for him, and is all afloat when rations, forage or shelter 
are not forthcoming; but the tough little Cossack is never so 
well off as when turned loose and told to forage for himself. He 
and his horse will thrive, but the neighborhood may suffer. 

In time of war, Russia is able to call into the field over 
150,000 Cossacks, most of whom are cavalry, though there are 
thirty-nine Cossack field-batteries, and seventeen battalions of 
infantry. The Don Cossacks furnish more than one-third of the 
entire number, and the other tribes, those of the Caucasus, the 
Volga, the Ural, etc., the remainder. Serving so much with the 
troops of the line, the Don Cossacks lose something of the "plains 
craft," which is so marked a characteristic of their wilder breth- 
ren ; but take them all-in-all, these irregular-regulars are a most 
valuable element in the Russian army, and the tsar is very careful 
to keep them in as efficient a state as possible. They are the 
eyes and ears of his field-force, as the Uhlans are of Prussia's, and 
when a foe is beaten and in retreat, the Cossack becomes a fearful 
enemy. The Grand Army of France, which began the retreat 
with Napoleon from ruined Moscow, was goaded to death by 
their swarming lances, and only a shadow of it got back across 
the Vistula. 



TURKEY'S PREPARATIONS FOR WAR. 339 

Such being, in brief, a summary of the Russian militar]^ -field- 
force, the Turkish army is next to be considered. 

Thanks to a vast recruiting field in Asia, the Porte was abL f'O 
keep its ranks well filled throughout the war; but in disci^ihne, 
equipment and instruction, the Turkish army was fir infe\ lor to 
the Russian. They had but half as many guns, and the- r cav- 
alry was the worst in Europe, and very small in number. It was 
in point of armament that Turkey stood head and shoulders 
above her antagonist. Her field-guns were Krupp's best make, 
steel breech-loaders ; and her infantry was supplied through- 
out with the finest long-range breech-loading rifle ever placed in 
the hands of troops — the celebrated Peabody-Martini, calibre .45, 
made by the Providence Tool Company, in our Qcvn Rhode 
Island, When the war broke out 300,000 of thes^ guns were 
on hand, and 200,000 more were sent them. 

Being short of cavalry, the Turks thought to match the Cos- 
sacks by enlisting the services of some Bulgarian and Roumelian 
guerillas, called Bashi-bozouks. Being pushed to the wall, Tur- 
key had to make the most of her untrained subjects, and these 
vagabond "bushwhackers" were given arms and ammunition. 
It was an experiment not unlike that resorted to by our own 
government, when in 1861 it enlisted from the scum of the New 
York streets the regiment known as " Billy Wilson's Zouaves " — 
an incalculable boon to the locality from which it was drafted, 
but of no earthly use to the nation. A wise discretion prompted 
the assignment of Colonel Billy's regiment to the lonely strand 
of Santa Rosa Island, where they could only steal from one 
another, and so served a term in a penal colony all their own ; 
but these Bashi-bozouks followed the movements of the Turkish 
army, and robbed and pillaged right and left. They would have 
been a terror to defenceless Russian hamlets, but they never got 
across the border, and so proved a pestilence to their own people. 

In point of organization, the army of Turkey differed but 
slightly from those of the military nations of Europe. Infantry 
was handled in battalions and brigades ; cavalry in squadrons 
and regiments, and artillery in field-batteries, very much as were 
those arms of service in Russia ; but where all was steady dis- 



340 



PLEVNA. 



cipline and efficiency among the troops of the tsar, there was 
laxity and grave irregularity among the soldiers of the Porte. 

One thing can be said of the Turk. He has a certain disregard 
of danger, is a " fatalist" to the extent of believing that the mat- 
ter of life and death is beyond control of any precaution on his 
part, and when the appointed time comes, be it soon or late, he 
must die. It gives him a certain stoical indifference to personal 
peril which is a valuable trait in the soldier, and yet is no kin 
to the high order of courage we see in the intelligent, the Chris- 
tian man ; that courage which, while it leaves its bearer fully sen- 
sible of every risk to life and limb, yet guides him in serene and 
steadfast purpose along the path of duty — the bravery of true 
manhood. Wonderful fortitude and pluck were displayed on 
many occasions by the Turkish armies during the war. Severe 
hardships were uncomplainingly endured, but when crushing 
defeat came upon them they seemed to lose all cohesion, and 
went to pieces with stunning rapidity. 

The Russian plan of campaign was a problem from the start. 
The treaty of Paris, in 1856, after the fall of Sebastopol, robbed 
tlie tsar of his fleet in the Black Sea, and left Turkey in supreme 
naval control of that inland ocean. With a strong fleet, Russia 
could have sent her supplies and armies down along the coast, 
past the mouths of the Danube, past the Dobrudja, past the 
Balkans, and so carry the war into the heart of Turkey. But 
Russia's ships were gone, and hers had to be a land attack. 
She must march her armies through the principalities along the 
border, through possibly hostile populations, across a great river, 
and, like Sherman at Atlanta, depend for life upon that slender 
thread of 300 miles of railway stretching far behind him. But 
Sherman never hesitated ; neither did the grand duke. Sherman 
had to fight his way foot by foot, for Johnston disputed every 
gap, ridge or rail-fence. The grand duke with the army of the 
south had an actual " walk-over," for Turkey never woke up until 
the Russian bugles were blowing the reveille along the Danube. 

The Army of the South, near the end of April, was posted along 
the frontier about fifty miles north of Galatz, with headquarters 
at Kishineff As it crossed into Turkey it consisted of the Eighth, 



RUSSIA'S DISADVANTAGES. 



341 



Ninth, Eleventh, and Twelfth corps d'antiec, commanded respect^ 
ively by Lieutenant-Generals Radetsky, Baron Kriidener, Prince 
Shakoiskoi, and Vannofsky. There were two rifle divisions under 
major-generals, and there was finally a great cavalry command 
of Cossacks led by Lieutenant-General SkobelefC Subsequently, 
the Fourteenth, Fourth, and Thirteenth corps, under Zimmerman, 
Zotof, and Prince Korsakoff, respectively, were ordered to join the 
Army of the South, bringing it up to 182 battalions, 204 squad- 
rons, and 808 field-guns — in all some 200,000 combatants. On 
the morning of April 24th the advance deliberately crossed the 
line, and on the 24th of May the Russian army was aligned along 
the north bank of the Danube, the centre at Bucharest, the front 
picketed from Nicopolis to Silistria. Turkey had hardly opposed 
a gun to the advance. 

Arriving at the Danube, Russia was brought to a halt. The 
spring had been very wet; the river was fifteen feet higher than 
usual ; the gauge of the Roumanian railway was smaller than 
that of the Russian roads (" five-footers"), and much of the roll- 
ing stock had been gotten out of the way, so that unexpected 
delays occurred in bringing forward the pontoon and siege trains 
and the needed supplies of rations, forage, and ammunition. 

But while the army was brought to a stand, some splendid 
work was done by officers of the Russian navy. The Turks 
had a powerful fleet of iron-clads under Hobart Pasha, an ex- 
officer of the English navy, and these thunderers were vastly in 
the way at the mouth of the Danube. Russia had no ships or 
iron-clads there, but she sent down some spirited young lieuten- 
ants from the Baltic-, and one of these daring fellows (bethinking 
himself probably of our Gushing and the " Albemarle," whose 
story is so well told in Dr. Shippen's Naval Battles) took 
some little steam-launches and torpedo boats one dark, rainy 
night and blew up the Turkish ship-of-war " Seife " in the Matchin 
channel of the Danube, below Braila, and in a short time after 
the declaration of war, Russian torpedoes were so thick along the 
delta channels and the lower river that, in very dread of them, the 
Turkish iron-clads backed out and were no more seen. Up the 
river around Rustchuk and Nicopolis the Turks had smaller 



343 PLEVNA. 

iron-clads, and the Russian officers so tormented them with torpe 
does that from first to last the Mussulman navy was of no account 
whatever. On the Danube the fleet was a perfect failure, and was 
speedily driven to the shelter of the shore guns and kept there. 

On June 22d, General Zimmerman ferried two regiments across 
the Danube at Galatz and drove the Turkish outposts from the 
heights on the Dobrudja shore. Soon afterwards he crossed his 
whole force at Braila and moved southward, whereupon the 
Turks gave up the Dobrudja without further struggle and fell 
back behind Trajan's wall. 

On June 24th the Russian siege batteries on the north bank 
began hammering at the walls of Rustchuk, and on the night of 
the 26th the advance of the Eighth corps slipped across the Dan- 
ube in boats and effected a lodgment below Sistova. The fol- 
lowing afternoon the town itself fell into the hands of the invaders 
after brief resistance, and by the first days of July the pontoon 
bridges were thrown across, the Army of the South was on Bul- 
garian soil, and Turkey had done little or nothing to prevent it. 
" In ten we^ks from the opening of hostilities," says Greene, 
" the Russians had established themselves on the southern bank 
of the Danube, and with a loss which, in comparison to the im- 
portance of the success, was totally insignificant." The Turks 
tried to make believe it was all part and parcel of a plan to lure 
the Russians across the Danube and there surround and crush 
them. Lure them across they certainly did, whether designedly 
or not. Crush them they did not, nor did they come anywhere 
near it. Now, however, began their defensive campaign. 

The entire Army of the South, except detachments left to 
guard the towns and railway to their rear, crossed the Danube 
by the pontoons near Sistova, all but the Fourth corps being over 
by July 1 5 th. In accordance with the plan, General Gourko with 
the advance, and followed by the Eighth corps, was to push ahead 
for the Balkans by way of the main high-road through Tirnova. 
Two rivers come down into the Danube from the mountains to 
the south — the Yantra east of Sistova, the Vid to the west and 
beyond Nicopol's. The Yantra drains a large tract of country 
around Tirnova, which lies on one of the nine branches into 



RAPIDITY OF THE RUSSIAN MOVEMENT. , 343 

A'hich it splits up on nearing the range, but as it approaches the 
Danube it falls away to the eastward a dozen miles or so from 
the Sistova highway, and passes the town of Biela on the greaf 
cross-road between Tirnova and Rustchuk. This same high-road, 
continuing westward over the rolling foothills of the Balkans, 
bridges the little river Osma, and some twenty-five miles beyonu 
that, dips down into the valley of the Vid, and crosses the east 
fork of that stream at the town of Plevna. While the Russian 
centre was to follow the high-road to the Balkan passes, the 
Twelfth and Thirteenth corps were thrown out into the Yantra 
valley to cover the left flank ; the Ninth corps was designated 
to assault Nicopolis and go up the valley of the Vid on the right 
flank, while the Fourth and Eleventh corps were for the time 
being to be held in reserve. 

The cavalry seized Biela on the 5th of July, and Gourko won 
Tirnova on the 7th. Then the tsar arrived and joined the army 
at Biela ; the left wing pushed steadily forward up the Yantra ; 
Gourko burst through the Balkans ; Kriidener captured Nico- 
polis — all within a brief fortnight — and everything, right, centre, 
and left, was going swimmingly for Russia and all amiss for Tur- 
key, when suddenly Kriidener, plunging up the Vid valley, struck 
a rock at the forks and came to a dead stop at Plevna. On the 
20th of July the Russian right was whipped, and then everybody 
elsewhere in the Army of the South had to pull up short in his 
triumphant career and turn back to help Kriidener out of trouble. 

But, meantime, there had been consternation at Constanti- 
nople. The political effect of the passage of the Danube and 
Gourko's sudden leap for the passes through the Balkans was 
startling. Panic reigned at Adrianople and spread to the capital 
on the Bosphorus. The sultan was well-nigh ready to flee to 
Asia Minor, and leave the nation to take care of itself He dis- 
graced and banished the general-in-chief, Abdul Kerim Pasha, 
and the minister of war. Then Mehemet Ali was made com- 
mander-in-chief, Suleiman was sent to confront Gourko, and even 
England took alarm. Her side of that complex political problem^ 
"The Eastern Question," was involved, and as there are few 
spots on the face of the earth where a fight can come off without 



344 PLEVNA. 

stirring up a British subject, so here the interests of Great 
Britain in restraining Russia from control of the Bosphorus and 
Dardanelles became threatened by such sweeping success, and 
promptly the great English fleet was sent steaming to Besica 
Bay, while her foundries and arsenals at home resounded with 
the clang of preparation for war. All seemed agreed that it was 
right for Russia to whip Turkey — but not too much. 

But, in winning Nicopolis, Baron Kriidener had lost some 
1,300 officers and men, and had found an enemy that showed 
fine stomach for fighting. The Turks had succumbed to supe- 
rior numbers and scientific disposition of force, and the fall of the 
old fort was a misfortune which involved the surrender of over 
100 guns, 10,000 small arms, tw^o monitors and 7,000 men. 
Whether success of this kind turned Kriidener's head, or 
whether this effect was confined to his subordinates, does not 
appear; but that somebody was to blame for the horrible blunder 
that followed is beyond peradventure. With all his admirable 
cavalry at his disposal, Kriidener's advance stumbled on up the 
valley of the Vid and into the clutches of the bravest army and 
the best soldiers Turkey could possibly lay claim to — 40,000 
seasoned veterans — and Osman Pasha. 

From the city of Widdin, more than one hundred miles up the 
valley, this strong column had come marching down on the Rus- 
sian flank. Another column 12,000 strong had been ordered up 
from Sophia, across the Balkans. Prisoners taken at Nicopolis 
told Kriidener that heavy reinforcements were on the road. Com- 
mon sense ought to have told him that they would be coming. 
Then his Caucasian Cossacks up the Vid said they sazu them 
coming, and neither the grand duke nor Kriidener seems to have 
thought the tidings of any importance. " Occupy Plevna as 
promptly as possible," were the orders sent to Kriidener, and, 
obedient to them, the baron directed General Schilder-Schuldner 
on the 1 8th of July to advance and seize the town. A strong 
division was under this officer's command, and a brigade of Cos- 
sack cavalry was ordered to report to him for duty. He had 
6,500 men and forty-six guns. While part of his force marched 
westward along the Rustchuk road toward Plevna, and his Don 




ABDUL HAMID, SULTAN OF TURKEY. 



I 



RUSSIAN ARMY IN A TRAP. 347 

Cossacks followed the river road up the Vid to his right, Schil- 
der-Schuldner himself with the main body and with no cavalry 
near him at all, pushed out southwestward on Plevna. At two 
o'clock on the afternoon of the 19th, the Don Cossacks — taking 
dinner after their gipsy fashion, over on the banks of the Vid— 
were amazed to hear the booming of cannon eight miles out to 
the southeast. Instead of covering their general's front, here 
they were far to his right and rear, and he, meantime, had stum- 
bled into trouble among the hills around Plevna. Promptly they 
bundled up pots and kettles, sprang into saddle and went clatter- 
ing off to the support of their comrades; but, the moment they 
got in sight of Plevna, and before they could reach their chief, 
they found the way barred by the long lines of red-fezzed Turks. 
In the same way the Nineteenth regiment, advancing from the 
east, was confronted by Turkish skirmish lines, and the centre 
ran slap into a brace of well-handled batteries that not only 
checked the advance but inflicted severe loss upon the columns. 
Still, he had no idea the Turks were in force, and though his 
people bivouacked for the night on a sweeping circle of seventeen 
miles, the Russian general determined on an assault at daybreak, 
July 20th, and /his led. 

THE FIRST BATTLE OF PLEVNA, 

a short and sharp one. Schilder-Schuldner meant to take the 
initiative at da\;n, but the Turks were ahead of him. At four in 
the morning tl;ey pounced upon his Don Cossacks at Bukova, 
just north of the town, and so opened the ball on the Russian 
right. A battery was sent to the aid of the Cossacks, while the 
centre confidently pushed forward ; three batteries and six battal- 
ions assaulted ihe heights of Grivitza east of the town, and after 
a lively fight whipped the Turks out of the west end of their 
improvised field-works and raced them under the very garden- 
walls of Plevn.i. But here there came stubborn resistance, and 
at seven o'cloc/c the Seventeenth and Eighteenth regiments found 
themselves in a very hot and uncomfortable place, while their 
guns were still shelling the east end of the Grivitza lines. 

Far around tD the Rustchuk road the Nineteenth regiment had 



34S PLEVNA. 

early begun the assault of the Turkish outposts, and had been 
successful in driving them in as far as the town, but here they, 
too, came to a stand, unable to make headway and unwilling to 
go back. Farther south the Caucasian Cossack brigade pitched 
in with its feeble battery, and to no perceptible effect. The guns 
were too short-ranged to be of any use. But the Nineteenth had 
suffered heavily, and needed aid, so the brigade was drawn in 
towards them just in time to take part in the next phase of the 
battle, a general retreat. 

Over on the Russian right the Don Cossacks had been suc- 
cessful in beating back the Turks and following them to the lines 
'of the town. Then came the counter-stroke. 

All this time the main body of Osman Pasha's force had Iain 
in quiet retirement within the streets of Plevna. Now of a sud- 
den it burst forth in furious attack north and east. Column after 
column came surging forth from the gates until the slopes were 
lined with the red skull-caps and flashing with the scathing vol- 
leys of the Peabody-Martinis. Brave as was the struggle made 
by Schilder-Schuldner, his effort was all in vain. His patient 
infantry never broke or scattered, but, torn, crippled and bleeding, 
fell slowly and stubbornly back until, at five o'clock, the firing 
ceased and the Russian advance on the right flank was shattered. 

So heavy were the losses in killed and wounded that the Rus- 
sians had- to leave them on the field, and so great was the de- 
struction of artillery horses that seventeen caissons had to be 
abandoned. Twenty-two officers were killed, fifty-two wounded, 
and 2,771 men were lost in the same way; more than two-thirds 
of the officers, and one-third of the rank and file being thus 
placed liors de combat. The Turkish loss was probably no 
greater, while to them remained the glory of victory. General 
Schilder-Schuldner had blindly ordered the assault of a force four 
times his strength, and was deservedly beaten. 

Baron Kriidener could not but feel the utmost chagrin at this 
unforeseen result of his attempt to occupy Plevna. The command 
was speedily withdrawn to the neighborhood of Nicopolis, and 
vigorous measures were taken to bring up the entire Ninth corps 
to the renewal of the attack. Meantime, the Turks were not 



STRONG POSITION OF THE TURKS. 9Aq 

idle. For ten days they worked like beavers, strengthening their 
intr-'nchments east of the town and around to Bukora on the 
n;)rth, and by July 30th Osman Pasha had 40,000 well-trained 
troops at his back ; and the concentration of the Ninth Russian 
corps on the heights, to the northeast, gave him little concern. 
Ten days after the disaster to Schilder-Schuldner came 

THE SECOND BATTLE OF PLEVNA, 

fought July 30th, and fought somewhat against the wishes of 
Baron Kriidener, the immediate Russian commander. He had 
carefully studied the position, marked the strength of the re- 
doubts and lines of the Grivitza heights, and become dubious as 
to the result of direct assault. Then, too, he had learned to 
dread putting in his troops against that fearful fire of small-arms 
— a fire that carried off his people at what he and they had 
hitherto considered artillery range. Long before his leading lines 
could throw their fire upon the Turks, those American-made 
bullets were whistling over their heads and bringing down by 
the dozen, men in the distant reserves. Kriidener telegraphed 
for further instructions and they came, sharp and stern and sting- 
ing. The grand duke could not understand his wing-com- 
mander's hesitancy, and said so in as many words. This left 
poor Kriidener no alternative. He gave the word and did his 
best, but Osman Pasha was far too much for him, as the results 
will show. 

The town of Plevna, with its labyrinth of narrow, crooked 
streets, lies in a deep depression where the valleys of two little 
streams — Tutchenitza creek from the south, and Grivitza brook 
from the east — unite to form the east fork of the river Vid. All 
around it, east, west, north and south, are high rolling hills, and 
deep ravines with precipitous banks. The highway to the east 
runs up the valley of the Grivitza brook and skirts on the south- 
ern edge the little hamlet of that name, some four miles out. 
South of the high-road and jutting southeastward are two high 
ridges separated by a little stream purling through a deep gorge. 
On the first of these ridges — the northernmost — the Turks 
had built four strong redoubts, bristling with guns ; three of 



350 PLEVNA. 

them overhanging the ravine which separated them from the 
southern ridge, known as the Radischevo ridge, from a bunch of 
rural cottages to which that name is given as a village deserving 
of some distinction. It nestles close under the crest along the 
southern slope, and was the scene of some of the most stirring 
features of the second battle, for here were the headquarters of 
Lieutenant-General Shakofskoi and the left wing of the Russian 
attack. North of the Grivitza brook and a mile northwest of 
Grivitza itself, perched on the summit of a commanding knoll, 
was another strong redoubt — the Grivitza, it was called. From 
here, around to Bukora to the west and the Plevna ridge to the 
south, were freshly dug lines of rifle-pits, and the ridges between 
the lower redoubts were scored and seamed with them. West of 
Plevna to the Vid, there were no works at all ; but down in the 
valley on the northwestern skirts of the town lay a reserve camp 
where 20,000 men could be held in readiness to move in any di- 
rection, and where probably that many men were posted, and 
not one of the encircling Russians could see them. 

South of Plevna runs the high-road to Lovtcha, climbing up 
between the knolls of what are called the Green Hills, and when 
it became his duty to attack the position of the Turks, Kriidener 
sent across this road and up into those hills a little brigade of 
Cossacks with their horse-battery, and this was the command of 
a young major-general who won world-wide fame during the 
fighting that followed — Skobeleff Greene designates him as 
Skobeleff II., to distinguish him from the senior Skobeleff, who 
was a lieutenant-general, and in command of the united division 
of Don, Terek and Caucasian Cossacks. 

With only 30,000 disposable men, Baron Kriidener was now to 
attempt the assault of a superior force, far better armed and in a 
strong position. To us, who know that Osman Pasha has 
40,000 men with cannon and rifles that can far outshoot the 
Russian arms, the result must be a foregone conclusion. The 
grand duke had refused to believe the Turks were in heavy force, 
and being himself at Tirnova, eighty miles away, he gave his 
orders with all the incisiveness of the autocrat that he was. 

Early on the morning of the 30th of July the Ninth cavaliy 



A LONG-RANGE DUEL. 



351 



division marched forward on the extreme right of the Russian 
lines, and faced the heights to the northeast of Plevna. Krii- 
dener, with the right centre, marched westward and deployed his 
lines facing west, and threatening the Grivitza redoubt and the 
lines north of the brook. Shakofskoi, with the left centre, faced 
northward along the Radischevo ridge, confronting the frowning 
redoubts across the deep ravine, and far over to the west, facing 
Plevna from the southwest, was young Skobeleff with his little 
band of Cossacks. There was a gap of over two miles on a 
bee-line between the right of Shakofskoi's line and the left of 
Kriidener's, and as big a gap over to Skobeleff This looked 
ominous. Kriidener had along this circular line 176 guns, 
thirty-six battalions, and thirty squadrons. 

While the cavalry on his widely separated flanks were ordered 
to guard well all approaches, the right centre was directed to 
assault the Grivitza redoubt and ridge, the left centre the Plevna 
ridge, and the reserve, one brigade, was held in rear of the centre 
near Karagatch. 

It was seven o'clock before the simultaneous advance and de- 
ployment began. By eight o'clock the right centre, advancing in 
two deep lines, moved gradually into range of the Turkish guns 
in the big redoubt, but, never halting until it came within 3,000 
yards and its own guns could be brought into play, the leading 
division (the Thirty-first) swept steadily on. At half-past eight 
its four batteries unlimbered and opened fire, while the infantry 
lay down and watched the long-range duel. In the same way 
Shakofskoi's wing marched unopposed to Radischevo. There it 
deployed, ran forward its guns to the crest and opened on the 
redoubts only 1,500 to 2,500 yards away, across the ravine. By 
nine o'clock the foothills of the Balkans were ringing with the 
reverberations of some two hundred guns, and for six mortal 
hours, while the infantry lay prone upon the ground and never 
pulled trigger or made a move, this incessant thunder was kept 
up. At the end of that period Kriidener decided he had had 
enough artillery practice and it was time to do something. Thus 
far two Turkish batteries (small ones) were silenced, and three 
Russian guns were dismounted, as the apparent result of a vast 
expenditure of time and ammunition. 



352 PLEVNA. 

Now, however, it was the infantry's turn, and the serious busi« 
ness of battle began. At half-past two the columns of the right 
centre sprang to their feet and pushed out over the slopes toward 
the smoke-crowned heights of Grivitza, and at the same moment 
Shakofskoi's lines popped up over the Radischevo and swept 
forward to the assault of the works along the Plevna ridge. In 
the ricfht wine; the command had been divided into two columns 
— one assaulting from the northeast, the other from the east. The 
first column was made up of the battalions of the One Hundred 
and Twenty-first and One Hundred and Twenty-third regiments, 
with the Seventeenth and Eighteenth in reserve. The second 
column, assaulting from the direction of the village of Grivitza, 
was made up of the One Hundred and Twenty-second regiment 
and the First battalion of the One Hundred and Twenty-third. 
Attacking in " company columns," according to the system in 
vogue before such guns as the Peabody were made known to 
them, these devoted regiments marched forward to a useless 
sacrifice. The instant their purpose became apparent, the Turk- 
ish infantry manned their parapets, opened fire with their long- 
range rifles, and the work of destruction began. Before they were 
fairly ivithin a mile of the coveted redoubt the men were drop- 
ping by scores far back in the second and third lines, pierced by 
bullets which seemed to come from the clouds. Amazed, yet 
undaunted, they plunged ahead, holding their own fire until they 
could reach a point from which their Krenks could possibly carry 
into the Turkish lines ; but, long before such a position could 
be attained, hundreds of their number were stricken down by a 
hail of lead against which there was neither reply nor shelter. 
Sadly crippled, yet still in determined order, the Penza regiment 
pushed bravely on, and when at last within charging distance 
its leading battalion burst forward with the " hurra ! " and act- 
ually leaped into the first line of earthworks; but by this time 
they were far too few in number to hold the prize, and the Turks 
would have made short work of their remnant but for the sup- 
porting rush of the Second battalion that came cheering over 
the trenches just in time. Thus reinforced, the Russian advance 
swept on, drove the Turks out of the second line down into the 



MURDEROUS WORK OF THE " PEABODYS." 353 

ravine beyond, then up the slopes to the shelter of the Grivitza 
redoubt itself. The Second battalion followed so closely on the 
heels of the fleeing Turks as to be able to dash over the para- 
pet in the ardor of pursuit; but here the gallant major who led 
them was killed, and the three leading companies literally cut 
to pieces. The Turks swarmed to the breastworks, and, keep 
ing under shelter themselves, held their rifles over the parapets, 
and, firing at random in many instances, made havoc in the dense 
masses of the Russians swarming up to the assault. Others 
aimed and fired with practiced eye and hand, and the precision 
and rapidity of their alms were too great for possibility of suc- 
cess on the part of the assailants. The other battalions of the 
Penza regiment made a most gallant and determined attack in 
support of their Second, but the fire was simply terrible, and in 
a very few moments they were hurled back, bleeding and van- 
quished, into the ravine, leaving on the slopes or in the redoubt 
twenty-nine officers and i,oo6 men shot down — one-half their 
officers, one-third of their men. 

Instead of making simultaneous assault, the two battalions of 
the One Hundred and Twenty-third waited apparently to see 
what the effect of the Penza's charge would be. This was a 
grievous blunder, recalling the very unprofessional style ir» 
which our militia and volunteer regiments were put in at the 
first Bull Run. Seeing their comrades vanquished, the One 
Hundred and Twenty-third very pluckily made an attempt 
of their own, but they too, despite the aid of the reduced 
Seventeenth and Eighteenth regiments, were sent staggering 
back into the ravine, with losses almost as great. Two 
hours of the sharpest kind of fighting along the northern front 
had resulted in general disaster, and no better success had 
attended Kriidener's attack from the east. Here the regiments 
of Tamboff and of Galitz only succeeded in getting within 400 
yards of the redoubt, where, harassed by savage volleys from 
front and from their left flank, where a lot of Turks had crept 
out among the trenches, they were compelled to stand at bay 
and fight, firing as best they could. It was an inglorious effort, 
and no good came of it. 
30 



354 rLKVNA. 

Far over to the south, Shakofskoi at Radischevo had put in 
two fresh regiments. These fellows made a spirited rush down 
into the ravine, and then, partially sheltered by the steep banks, 
slowly and steadily crawled to the top, and, despite a murder- 
ous fire that mowed them down when they once more appeared, 
they dashed forward with linginy; cheers, and, though their 
own losses were terrible, they whipped the Turks out of the two 
eastern redoubts and captured two of their guns. This was im- 
portant and really unexpected success. Could Shakofskoi but 
hold them, and from them drive the enemy out of the other two 
and down the slopes into Plevna, the town and the reserve 
camp would be at his mercy, for by this time the reserve 
camp had been discovered. Skobeleff far over across the Lov- 
tcha road among the Green Hills, had pushed daringly for- 
ward early in the day to the edge of the bluffs overlooking 
Plevna and the entire field, and there his soldier's eye was 
caught by that great magazine of men down behind the town, 
and he at least no longer doubted the presence of Osman's entire 
force. 

But it was after five o'clock. Shakofskoi's right was now 
resting in the outermost redoubt, while his left was down in the 
ravine close to town. No help could come from Kriidener. 
A great gap intervened between them, and into this the 
Turks were pushing a strong force. At five o'clock Kriidener 
had called on his last reserves, sent one regiment to Shakofskoi 
and taken the other himself, but even as it came marching to 
support the south attack, this first-named regiment (the One 
Hundred and Nineteenth) caught sight of the Turks swarming 
into the gap between the wings, and promptly faced and gave 
them battle. Despite the gallant conduct of this reserve and 
his best efforts on the ridge, Shakofskoi found himself at six P. m. 
hemmed in on three sides by overpowering numbers, and all 
thought of further advance was abandoned. The question now 
was. could they get out of it at all ? 

Thanks to Skobeleff the answer came, and the left was saved. 
No sooner had he discovered the force still held in reserve by 
the Turks, than he saw that they had not only men enough to 



ANOTHER GRIEVOUS RUSSIAN DISASTER. 355 

check Shakofskoi's advance, but to swing out southerly and en- 
velop his left and rear. Never waiting to give them a chance to 
do this, he daringly lunged forward with his little battery and a 
few " sotnias " (squadrons) of Cossacks, and actually challenged 
them to combat. The Turkish force that would otherwise have 
worked around the flank of Shakofskoi — some 5,000 infantry — 
had to turn to drive off this cloud of hornets that hung about 
them ; but Skobeleff kept his light guns and lighter horsemen 
fighting daringly, tenaciously, brilliantly all the live-long after- 
noon and most of the morning, and the slow moving infantry 
of the Turks, in exasperation and rage, could only empty 
their cartridge boxes in random, long-range fire at him and his 
troopers, and were never allowed to get near Shakofskoi at all. 
At darkness, therefore, the latter was able to fall back to the 
Radischevo ridge, and early next morning, finding Kriidener 
gone, he marched eastward to Poradim, whither Osman did not 
care to pursue. 

Just before dark, Kriidener ordered one final and combined 
assault, and the order was obeyed by all whom it reached, 
but to no good purpose. It only added to the fearful sum of 
casualties on the Russian side, and when finally his lines were 
driven back, leaving scores of dead behind, Kriidener gave the 
order to retire. 

The day's losses had been very great. They were most severe 
in the One Hundred and Twenty-first regiment of Kriidener's 
wing, and the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth in Shakofskoi's, 
as these two led the assault on their respective fronts. The 
latter left 725 killed and 1,200 wounded on the slopes — "75 per 
cent, of its strength;" and, out of the 30,000 engaged, the total 
Russian loss was 169 ofificers and 7,136 men, 2,400 of whom had 
been shot dead on the field. 

No one knows just what casualties befell the Turks, but it is 
claimed that over 5,000 were placed hors de combat. 

And so, in disaster more grievous than the First, ended the 
Second Battle. It had been blindly ordered by the grand duke, 
blindly attempted and blunderingly fought. The two wings were 
not in supporting distance of each other. The regiments made 



356 PLEVNA. 

no combined assaults, but one was sent in after another had 
failed, and their old-fashioned compact order in company col- 
umn was kept up too long after they got into hot fire. The 
only brilliant work of the bravely fought day was Skobeleff's 
daring and skillful manoeuvring on the extreme left. He un- 
doubtedly, as Greene says, " saved Shakofskoi from being knocked 
to pieces." 

Well ! It blocked the Russian march of triumph then and 
there. It would be impossible to attempt to pierce the Balkans, 
while Osman with his strong corps held the line of the Vid on 
the right flank. Only one plan could be adopted. Stand on the 
defensive and telegraph home for the reserves. The tsar was at 
the front, and there was no delay. On August 3d the guards, the 
grenadiers, and four more divisions of the line, with the appro- 
priate artillery, were summoned to the scene on this " second 
alarm," and 120,000 regulars and 460 additional guns were 
promptly started for Bulgaria. At the same time, 188,000 militia 
were called to arms to fill up gaps at the front. The Prince of 
Roumania, too, was appealed to, and his army of 37,000 men 
was ordered to Nicopolis. 

Some weeks, however, must elapse before the reinforcements 
could reach the field, and now was Turkey's opportunity ; but 
the nation had no head. Three armies acting under three inde- 
pendent commanders were in the field, only a few days' marches 
apart. Mehemet Ali at Shumla, with 65,000 men along the 
Lom; Suleiman at Yeni Zagra, in front of Gourko's lair in the 
Balkans with 40,000, and Osman here at Plevna, holding the Vid 
with 50,000. A " war-council " at Constantinople directed the 
movements by telegraph, and not a thing was done. Suleiman 
hung for months in front of Gourko, shooting at the pickets in 
Shipka Pass, gaining nothing and losing much. Mehemet 
waited until August 30th, then drove the Russian left to the 
Yantra, but there irresolutely stopped short Osman at 
Plevna made a fluttering assault, August 31st, on the gathering 
corps of the Russians, which amounted to next to nothing, and 
ten days after, came the Russian counter-hit, which is known 
as the 



CAPTURE OF LOVTCHA. ^5^ 

THIRD BATTLE OF PLEVNA, 

fought September nth, and won, Hke the other two, by the 
Turks. Ever since the second battle, the genius of Osman had 
kept them hard at work with their spades, and by this time 
Plevna was a citadel — a walled city, though the walls were ugly 
earth-works. 

By the ist of September 100,000 Russian and Roumanian 
troops were assembled around Plevna, and the grand duke de- 
termined to attack at once, and crush this persistent obstacle to 
the onward move. As preliminary, he directed a column up the 
Vid to the town of Lovtcha, lying south of Osman's stronghold;, 
and being the most important position on the road to the Bal- 
kans. With Lovtcha in Russian hands, it was then proposed 
to envelop Plevna, and by simply contracting the circle, crush 
the Turks into surrender. General Imeretinsky, with brilliant 
young Skobeleff as right-hand man, was selected for the com- 
mand of the Lovtcha column, and on the 3d of September he 
won a sharply fought battle, driving the Turks out of their forts 
after desperate resistance, and then whirling his Cossacks after 
their retreating horde, lancing 3,000 of them in the niclec. With 
Lovtcha won, Prince Charles of Roumania took command of 
all the Russian forces around Plevna; the tsar and the Grand 
Duke Nicholas came over from the east to watch the struggle, 
took up their temporary abode near the village of Radnitza, and 
the whole army knew that the third and greatest of the battles for 
the possession of Plevna was to be fought forthwith. At this 
moment the troops of the Russian right were composed as fol- 
lows : the Roumanian contingent, under General Cernat, 30,000 
strong ; the Fourth corps, now led by General Kryloff (Zotof 
having been made chief of staff); the Ninth corps, under Baron 
Kriidener ; the Second division and one rifle brigade, under 
Imeretinsky, and two brigades of Cossacks. The Fourth and 
Ninth corps were severely reduced in numbers, having done 
pretty much all the fighting, and lost some 13,000 men up to 
that time ; but the total force hurled upon Osman Pasha, in this 
third attack, was at least 90,000 men, with some 440 guns. The 
Turks had an estimated strength of 56,000 infantry, with 2,500 
cavalry and 80 guns. 



^^S PLEVNA. 

The two highest points in the immediate neighborhood of 
Plevna were the Grivitza knoll to the eastward, where the Gri- 
vitza redoubt had been built early in the campaign, and the Krishin 
height, 3,000 yards southwest of the town. These two com- 
manded the ground in every direction, and were the actual key- 
points of the situation. When the second battle of Plevna 
was fought, and Skobelefif so brilliantly held the left, over 
on the Green Hills, there were no Turkish earthworks on their 
summits ; but no sooner had Osman rid himself of Kriidener, on 
the 30th of July, than he seized and began the fortification of 
those heights. Now, he had eighteen staunch and powerful re- 
doubts around Plevna, and those of Grivitza and Krishin com- 
manded all the others, with which they were connected by lines 
of trenches and rifle-pits. Greene divides the fortifications into 
what he terms three " groups," and it simplifies the explanation 
of the field. The first group was made by the two redoubts on 
the Grivitza ridge and the lines stretching westward from them ; 
the second or middle group, of the redoubts and works on what 
we have thus far called the Plevna ridge — that which, ending in 
abrupt bluffs at the town, ran out southeastward parallel with the 
Grivitza brook and to the south of it ; and the group also included 
the works on a spur of the Radischevo ridge, between the 
Tutchenitza creek and the deep ravine under the Plevna heights. 
The third group consisted of all the works out to the southwest, 
towards Krishin, none of which, as has been said, were built 
until after the second battle. On three sides, therefore, Plevna 
was well defended. The fourth or west front was protected by 
rolling, heavily wooded slopes, and was not " invested." 

On the evening of September 6, with three days' cooked rations 
in their haversacks and all tents left behind, the Russians silently 
moved forward from their camps and closed around the scarred 
heights that looked down on Plevna. The Roumanian army 
took post among the hills enveloping the Grivitza heights from 
the northwest. Kriidener, with the Ninth corps, trudged into 
position south of Grivitza and reaching round to Radischevo, so 
&s to confront " the middle group " from the east and southeast. 
Kryloff, with the Fourth corps, climbed the Radischevo ridge 



RUSSIA'S SALUTE TO THE CRESCENT. 359 

and deployed along its crest, rapidly posting his batteries so as 
to command from the south the parapets of the middle group 
on the Plevna ridge ; while over on the extreme left, towards the 
Lovtcha high-road, Imeretinsky and Skobeleff led their men, the 
latter as before having the prominent station at the left front 
For these last named it was a long, toilsome march, but for the 
Roumanians and the Ninth corps a mere advance of a few miles. 
Strange as it may seem, not a shot was fired, not a challenge was 
heard. Nothing, not even the barking of village dogs, seems 
to have given to the drowsy Turks the faintest intimation that 
anything aggressive was going on. Kriidener's men came bur- 
dened with ready-made gabions, fascines, and platforms for siege- 
guns, and at nine o'clock their engineers had staked off the out- 
lines of two powerful batteries, within commanding range of the 
Grivitza redoubt. At midnight they were finished ; the heavy 
guns were rolled into place, and at dawn, when the outlines 
of the Turkish fort became visible, its occupants were astonished 
by a thundering roar from the heights below Grivitza, and the 
boom and crash of a shell overhead. It was Russia's morning 
salute to the Crescent. A i&w Turks popped up in sight on the 
parapet, the guard probably, and then leaped below and aroused 
the garrison with the startling news that the valleys and heights 
to the east, north and south, were black with Russians. Before 
the artillerymen could get to their guns the storm had burst from 
all sides, and the bombardment of the lines of Plevna had begun. 

It lasted all day. The siege-guns and field nine-pounder bat- 
teries mainly concentrated their fire on the Grivitza redoubt. 
But earthworks are tough ; a stone fort would have been knocked 
out of shape in a few hours ; yet, when night came, despite the 
way the dirt and dust had been flying from its flanks all day, the 
saucy little redoubt looked serviceable as ever, and not one of its 
eight guns had been silenced. This was disheartening. Nothing 
had been accomplished worth recording except that Imeretinsky 
and Skobeleff had pushed farther west across the Lovtcha road. 

September 8th began as did the 7th, with a continuous banging 
at long range from the big guns. The Ninth cavalry division 
was sent across the Vid north of Plevna, to hold the Sophia road 



360 PLEVNA. 

and cut off communications ; but around the beleaguered town 
there would probably have been still another day of tedious, 
nerve-wearing, and resultless long-range gun-practice, had it not 
been for that irrepressible Skobeleff. He was the Sheridan of the 
campaign, and no pottering about at cannon-range would suit him. 

From the heights around Brestovitz, Skobeleff had caught 
sight of the new redoubts north of Krishin. Unlimbering his 
batteries he began pounding with them at over two-mile distance, 
but finding that at that range Turkish guns were far better than 
his own, he closed in. Many another general would have drawn 
back, because his guns were inferior ; Skobeleff pushed ahead 
until so close that one gun was as good as another, and all de- 
pended on men and leaders. Turkish infantry were scattered 
through the Green Hills east of Krishin. Skobeleff took the 
Fifth and Eighth regiments and made squarely at them, driving 
them out of the first or southern knoll, and concentrating them 
on the second. This second knoll lay out on the prolongation 
of the Fourth corps lines on Radischevo heights across the 
Tutchenitza, and directly east and under the guns of Krishin. 
Giving his men brief breathing spell, Skobeleff pushed ahead, 
whipped the Turks out of this second knoll, chased them to the 
third, and never stopped until within 1,500 yards of Plevna itself; 
far ahead of Kryloff's lines and with those Krishin redoubts to 
his left rear. This, of course, was a false position, and though 
victorious, he had to fall back to the first knoll to save his men 
from useless slaughter. 

On the 9th the Turks at Grivitza ridge ceased artillery fire, 
and the Prince of Roumania, thinking them cowed by the severity 
of the two days' bombardment, essayed an assault with infantry, 
but the attack was greeted by such a fury of small-arm fire that 
it recoiled in great disorder. Then, over at the other end of the 
field — the southwest — the Turks took heart and advanced in force 
against Skobeleff, and he whipped them back with the utmost 
ease. That night there came from General Zotof an order virtu- 
ally reversing the relations of Imeretinsky and Skobeleff, and 
placing the latter in supreme charge of all matters on the left 
flank. 



SKOBELEFF TO THE FRONT. $6x 

All next day, the loth, the Russian batteries hammered away 
at the Turkish earthworks, raising much dust and uproar, but 
doing very little damage. The Turks ceased firing, but only be- 
cause ammunition was scarce. That afternoon it began to rain in 
torrents, a peculiar and almost inevitable sequel to a three days' 
cannonade, and the ground was turned into black and pasty mud. 
Notwithstanding this, the general assault was ordered for the fol- 
lowing day. 

Dawn of the nth came in dense and drizzling fog. The 
guns were hushed, for all objects across the ravines were hidden 
from view. The plan of attack contemplated a fierce bombard- 
ment of the Grivitza fort and redoubt No. lo — the latter being 
the one southeast of Plevna and nearest the Radischevo ridge — 
and then at 3 p. m., a simultaneous rush of the infantry upon them 
and upon the works west of the Lovtcha road, southwest of Plevna. 
As a preliminary, Skobeleff's men, on the west, had leaped for- 
ward the morning of the loth, seized the second knoll, and with 
bayonets, soup-dishes — anything that could scoop — they "had has- 
tily and successfully pitched up earthworks, that swallowed the 
Turkish bullets and left the plucky occupants dirty, but secure. 
Skobeleff then ran forward his guns, and got ready for work on 
the nth. 

The battle began, and ended, with him. Early in the morning 
the dripping sentries along the Russian lines were greeted by the 
rapidly quickening rattle of musketry off to the distant left; then 
came the boom of field-guns, and soon the sound of battle was 
the reveille of the rest of the Russian arm}'. The Turks had 
pushed out through the fog in hopes of surprising Skobeleff and 
inducing him to drop his guns, and the new position on the sec- 
ond knoll, and fall back. But there was no falling back with Sko- 
beleff. He and his men were on the alert, and the Turks were 
received with such firmness by the advanced skirmishers that 
the attack was not pressed, and presently quiet reigned again, 
and both sides seemed waiting for the fog to lift. Ten o'clock 
came, and Skobeleff could stand inaction no longer. Calling on 
his men, he sent them forward across a shallow ravine, up the 
slopes beyond, and there, after a sharp tussle, they drove out the 



363 PLEVNA. 

Turkish light troops and seized the third knoll, where the fog 
for the present exempted them from the fire of the redoubts, but 
not from that of the adjacent trenches. These gave the new- 
comers much trouble. A lively little battle ensued, and just as 
the men on Kryloff's left along the Radischevo were wondering 
if they would not have to go over to the aid of Skobeleff, they 
found themselves suddenly summoned to repel a furious sortie. 
The Turks from Plevna had crept up the ravines, and, veiled by 
the fog, had got close in upon the Russian lines ; the Sixty-third 
regiment, after a fierce short-range fight, sent them scattering 
back down the slopes and then rushed forward in pursuit ; the 
One Hundred and Seventeenth followed suit. Down they went 
into the ravine, up the opposite ridge, over the Turkish works, 
and there came in full view of the swarming redoubts right, left, 
and in front of them. They were trapped ; and only half their 
number got back alive. In a few short moments most of their 
officers and one-half of the men were shot down. There was no 
more fight for those regiments that day, and Kryloff's left wing 
was shattered. 

At noon the rising fog revealed the ground sufficiently to per- 
mit the guns to get to work, and until 2 P. m. there was a con- 
tinuous thunder of artillery. But this uplifting of the curtain 
was bad for Skobeleff. It showed him far out to the front on the 
distant left, and in an instant he and his men became the target 
of the Krishin redoubts to his left rear, and even the guns on the 
Plevna heights. Still he hung on, hoping that when the general 
advance began he could push forward. Three o'clock came, and 
still the grand duke and General Zotof hesitate about pushing in 
the infantry.' More pounding with the big guns was resorted to, 
and under cover of this fire the infantry lines at last advanced. 

Turning first to the northeast — the Roumanian attack on Gri- 
vitza — let us follow Prince Charles' movements. He had two 
strong divisions in line — the Third and Fourth — and with these 
he was ordered to assault from the north and east, while a Russian 
brigade attacked from the south. Thus would the Grivitza fort 
be hemmed in on three sides. It will take but few words to dis- 
pose of this attack — it seemed to take even fewer minutes. The 



THE ROUMANIAN TROOPS REPULSED. ^6^ 

Third division strove to reach the fort through two ravines — one 
from the northwest, one from the northeast. A brigade was sent 
up each. That which took the northwest gully never got any- 
where near the fort. It struck a previously unheard-of line of 
works, was met by a withering fire, and driven back to a distant 
ridge, where it was glad to dig for shelter. The second brigade 
seemed an interminable time climbing its ravine, and meanwhile 
the third column, moving from the east over open ground, and 
severely crippled by the fire that greeted it, reached the redoubt 
alone and unsupported about half-past three. There it received 
the undivided attention of the assailed, and went back in frag- 
ments to the shelter of the village. Then column No. 2 came 
up and took a similar thrashing. The Roumanian troops were 
out of the fight before four o'clock, except the one brigade held 
in reserve. 

By some accident the Russian brigade that was to have made 
a simultaneous assault from the south came up an hour late, but 
they were those splendid fellows of the Seventeenth and Eigh- 
teenth regiments who had already done hard fighting here and 
knew the ground. Aided by the reserve brigade of Prince 
Charles, they clambered up the slopes and over the parapet. 
Here a hand-to-hand fight occurred that lasted half an hour; 
both the Russian and Roumanian leaders were killed, and a 
heavy percentage of officers and men. And so, towards five 
o'clock, the Grivitza redoubt had beaten off all foes. Now, how- 
ever, came a change. The reserve battalions of the Seventeenth 
regiment came up, and a small force of Roumanians. A new 
and well-conducted assault was made, and after a very spirited 
fight these allied troops forced their way in, and at darkness were 
masters of the long-coveted Grivitza redoubt. The fort and the 
ditch were floored with dead bodies, and this afternoon's attack 
on the stubborn little post had cost the Russians and Rouma- 
nians seventy-eight officers and 3,816 men. 

We turn now to the Redoubt No. 10, in front of which the 
Sixty-third and One Hundred and Seventeenth regiments had 
already lost half their force. Two other regiments of the 
division were available, however, and while four batteries 



364 PLEVNA. 

blazed away at the redoubt from the west end of the Radischevo 
ridge, they pushed forward into the lower ground in front, 
then turned westward and strove to make headway against 
the fierce storm of musketry which greeted them. A strong 
force of Turks suddenly appeared on the heights to their right, 
and being terribly cut up by this cross-fire, the Russians at 
last reluctantly fell back, but fell back in sullen and disciplined 
order; for, when the Turks came swarming and yelling in mad 
pursuit, the two regiments halted, faced about, lay down and 
checked them with one steady, well-aimed volley, drove them 
back in disorder with another, and then in dignified defeat con- 
tinued their retirement. 

General Zotof meantime had sent over another brigade 
to replace the one so badly crippled during the morning, 
and now this new brigade tried its hand on Redoubt No. 10, 
but could get nowhere near it. At six p. m. all further attempt 
was abandoned; no officers and 5,200 men had been sacrificed 
in the mismanaged assaults on this one portion of the Turkish 
line. 

Now turn to the extreme left, across the Lovtcha road, and 
we come once more to Skobeleff, still sovereign of the Green 
Hills. We left him at noon grimly hanging on to his ex- 
tremely advanced position on the third and northernmost 
knoll, not a thousand yards from the trenches and rifle-pits 
stretching out from the very walls of the little city, and with 
redoubts bristling on every side of him. At two o'clock a 
strong skirmish line came up the northern slope of the third 
knoll, probably to develop his force, but the Sixty-second 
regiment drove them back with curiosity ungratified. At 2.30 
p. M. his troops were all ready for an onward move, and were 
lying prone to escape the shelling. Crouching behind the crest 
of the third knoll were the Sixty-first and Sixty-second regiments 
in strong line, with the Seventh in easy supporting distance, while 
two battalions of rifles were in close reserve behind the leading 
regiments. Back on the second knoll were the Fifth, Sixth, and 
Eighth regiments and the guns and more rifle battalions. 

Just at half-past two, Skobeleff blazed away with his guns over 



SkOBELEFF'S BRILLIANT CHARGE. 365 

the heads of his Hnes, and then, at three o'clock, sent the foot- 
men in. With fine enthusiasm, with bands all playing, with 
thrilling battle-cry, the first lines pushed gallantly forward, 
crossed the little brook at the foot of the northern slopes, 
and then burst up the opposite bank to attack the strong 
earthworks. By this time, however, they were subjected to very 
severe fire, and so many fell that the men began to falter and 
throw themselves upon the ground. Instantly, the Seventh came 
charging forward in support, and once more they struggled on. 
Now the lines began to show so far up on the slopes as to be dis- 
tinctly in range not only of the Krishin guns off to the southwest, 
but the redoubts across the valley beyond Plevna, both were 
hurling shells upon them in furious force ; the musketry fire, 
too, was something fearful, and once more they threw them- 
selves flat on the ground. Then it was that Skobeleff himself 
came dashing out to the front — the most conspicuous man on 
the field. Riding, as he always did, a mettlesome white horse, 
and wearing the glistering white uniform he always affected in 
battle, instead of the sombre field-dress of the Russian generals, 
he was at once the target for all sharpshooters and the centre of 
all eyes. Already the soldiers had begun to know and to glory 
in his personal daring, and now, animated by his superb appear- 
ance and his ringing words, aided, too, by the reinforcements 
tearing along after him, they made one grand and final effort, and 
at last charged home over the breastworks, carrying in with them, 
on their shoulders, it was said, their brilliant young leader. 
Though his horse was killed under him, and most of his staff 
shot down, Skobeleff himself was unhurt. He had lost 3,000 
men in the desperate charge, but had carried the Turkish lines. 
Still, there was no rest for him. All around were those blaz- 
ing redoubts, and now they were concentrating their fire on his 
breathless men, vainly seeking shelter in the trenches they had 
won. The Turks came forth in savage sorties from all the sur- 
rounding works, were met and fairly driven back, and one redoubt 
was fairly and squarely taken.. At six P. m. Skobeleff, with four 
regiments and the rifles, held all the Turkish works on the 
heights near and southwest of Plevna, and yet his position was 



366 PLEVNA. 

precarious in the last degree, for to the left and rear were three 
strong forts still manned by the Mussulmans, and their guns were 
booming at him every instant. Six hundred yards in front of 
him was the intrenched camp of the Turks ; off to his right, be- 
yond Plevna, the redoubts of the middle group ; off to his right 
rear, across the valley of the Tutchenitza, Redoubt No. 10. He 
was surrounded by hostile guns. But he hung to his prize all 
night long, despite every effort of the Turks to dislodge him. 

Morning of September 12th dawned clear and sparkling, and 
the grand duke had had enough of battle. Orders had been sent 
at daybreak to Skobeleff to fortify and hold to the last, the posi- 
tion he had won ; but some hours later — probably after reading 
the reports of the fearful array of casualties in the previous day's 
assaults — the Russian leaders gave it up ; sent word to Skobe- 
leff they could afford him no aid; all troops were to be withdrawn, 
and virtually telling him to get out of the scrape as best he could. 
Lieutenant Greene points out clearly that there were still abun- 
dant troops that had not been under fire, and that could well have 
been sent to help Skobeleff; but, to make the matter short, the 
Russians had suffered too much already, and were glad to quit. 
After two days of extreme peril, of daring and devoted bravery, 
of scientific and masterly handling of his little division, Skobeleff 
succeeded in extricating his force; but he had lost 160 officers 
and 8,000 men, and when he got back to the main army, the third 
and last battle of Plevna was over. Russia's total losses in the 
assault and consequent fighting were 18,000 men. The Turks 
are said to have lost between 12,000 and 15,000. 

And now Russia had to sit down before the gates of Plevna 
and try to starve out the men she could not whip. Osman Pasha 
had made a splendid defence, while the other two field com- 
manders of the Turkish army were frittering away their forces 
and their opportunities. Soon the Russian reinforcements 
began to arrive in great numbers. The Guards all arrived 
by October 20th, and Russia's great engineer (Todleben) came 
to conduct the siege. Gourko hastened back from the Bal- 
kans to lend a hand, and, after severe battling at Gorni-Dubnik 
and Telis, the Turks were driven in, and securely penned in, 



PALL OF PLEVNA. 2>^J 

Plevna. On November 3d the investment was complete. In 
one great circle, some 120,000 Russians were day by day cutting 
off the lines of the stubborn defenders. The result was inevit- 
able. Osman refused to surrender — refused to remain and be 
starved to death. He marshaled his men for one sublime effort 
— led a furious attack on the Grenadier corps to the west on the 
lOth of December, was wounded himself, and thoroughly de- 
feated ; and so at last, his provisions being exhausted, one-third 
of his force prostrate with wounds or illness, his ammunition 
well-nigh spent, and having made ever since July a most gal- 
lant and determined resistance to superior numbers, Osman 
Pasha surrendered on the loth of December, 1877, ^o ^" enemy 
who received him with every manifestation of soldierly respect 
and courtesy. 

And now, with Plevna fallen, there was little hope for Turkey. 
Gourko burst through the Balkans — this time near Sophia — and 
kept on to Philippopolis. The united army advanced on Adrian- 
ople, and the last shot of the war was fired in a cavalry skirmish 
at Tchorlu on the 29th. Finding that nothing else would stop the 
advance of the Russians on Constantinople, the Turks, despairing 
of assistance from England, " without the hope of which they would 
never have undertaken the war," signed an armistice which became 
the basis of the treaty of San Stefano, signed by the Powers on 
the 3d of March. By the terms of this, Turkey guaranteed : " i. 
The erection of Bulgaria into ' an autonomous tributary princi- 
pality, with a national Christian Government and a native militia.' 
2. The independence of Montenegro, with an increase of terri- 
tory. 3. The independence of Roumania and Servia, with a ter- 
ritorial indemnity. 4. The introduction of administrative reforms 
into Bosnia and Herzegovina. 5. An indemnity in money to 
Russia for the expenses of the war." 

But England saw menace to her interests in the terms of this 
treaty, and, mainly through her efforts, the representatives of all 
the great European Powers were speedily assembled at the 
German capital. Here were gathered the largest numbers of 
diplomatists who ever signed a treaty, and the treaty itself is said 
to have been the longest ever written. Known to history as " the 



3^8 PLEVNA. 

Congress of Berlin," this distinguished body signed, on July 13, 
1878, an agreement by which upwards of 30,000 square miles of 
territory and 2,000,000 of population were handed back to the 
Porte, and other modifications were made which enabled Lords 
Beaconsfield and Salisbury to return to England announcing 
" Peace with Honor." 

The crime and blunder of the treaty of Berlin, which took 
from tile Turks most of their fortresses and all hold on the val- 
ley of the Danube, were^ revealed in the disorders and brutalities 
of subsequent Turkish history. 




PORT ARTHUR. 

1894 

I 

BY TRUMBULL WHITE. ( 

HE collision between Japan and China, while 
strange to those who were not familiar with 
Eastern affairs, was not a surprise to per- 
sons acquainted with Asiatic politics. China 
claimed to be the mistress of Asia, Japan 
aimed to exalt herself among the first-class 
powers of the civilized world. The collision 
was inevitable, and involved directly, nations 
whose total population included more than 
one^fourth of the human race, the progress of civilization in 
those countries, and the commercial and other interests of 
European and American nations. 

In 1894, China, with scorn of western methods, faced Japan, 
adaptive, western-spirited, and possessing the prestige of a mar- 
velous career during the two score years that had elapsed since 
America knocked at her doors. The result was that, during 
hardly more than the four months succeeding the declaration 
of war, the fighting power of China was destroyed, her economic 
resources exhausted, and she, herself, was forced to beg the mercy 
of Japan. 

At first, the conflict was on the soil of Corea — for centuries a 
land of contention between China and Japan — although these 
two nations had, in 1876, united by treaty to recognize the in- 
dependence of the Corean kingdom. Nevertheless, when the 
province of Chulla rebelled in 1894, the Corean government 
invoked the aid of China. Japan protested at once, and sent 
5,000 soldiers into the distracted country; she demanded also, 
21 369 



37^ PORT ARTHUR. 

immediate reforms, a declaration of independence, and the with* 
drawal of the Chinese forces. China refused these demands and 
soon afterward, Japan declared war against her. Before hostili- 
ties were formally declared, however, the armies and navies of 
China and Japan had several encounters, in which Japan was 
victorious in every instance. 

On October 24th, Count Yamagata, commander-in-chief of 
the Japanese forces in Corea, threw a small force across the Yalu 
river, thus invading Chinese territory; and by the first of Novem- 
ber, one Japanese army was safely installed on the north bank 
of the Yalu, with a second on the Kwang Tung peninsula. The 
capture of Kinchow followed, and on November 7th, the vic- 
torious Japanese occupied Talien-wan, where the Chinese had 
made a very poor defense, in spite of six large and strongly 
constructed forts, mounting eighty comparatively modern guns 
of various calibre. These guns, as well as large stores of ammu- 
nition fell into the hands of the Japanese. The Chinese — panic- 
stricken, fled to Port Arthur. 

Port Arthur, or to give it its native name Lu-shun-kou, was 
the largest naval station possessed by the Chinese. Situated at 
the extreme southern end of the Liao-Tung peninsula, it had 
grown from a small village to a naval dockyard, boasting a large 
basin with a depth of twenty-five feet at low water. Spacious 
wharves and quays bordered this basin, and were connected 
with the workshops by a railroad. Two dry-docks were built 
for repairing ships of all sizes, from ironclads to torpedo ves- 
sels. P'oundries and workshops were constructed on the most 
improved models, and containing the best modern machinery. 
The fact that the harbor was always free from ice, even in the 
coldest winters, added to its value. By the time of the begin- 
ning of the war, the number of houses had increased until they 
were able to contain a population of about 6,000, exclusive of 
the garrison. There were also two large temples, two theatres, 
and several banks, besides the necessary stores and warehouses. 

The land defenses of Port Arthur consisted of nine small 
redoubts on the north and northeast, and three redoubts on the 
southwest. On the north side, a range of hilh; from 350 to 650 



DEFENSES OE POKT AETHUR. 37^ 

feet high, running from the sea to a shallow inlet of the harbor, 
enclosed the position. The tops of these hills were not more 
than 2,500 yards from the dockyard and town. The original 
line of defenses was still closer to the town, and on the northern 
side was only about 1,000 yards in advance of the vital point. 
The strongest part of the position was a group of three coast 
batteries surrounded by a continuous mud wall, and crowning a 
hill on the right of the entrance to the harbor. 

Upon the outbreak of the war, these fortifications were 
strengthened, and the normal garrison of 4,000 men materially 
increased. The troops were drilled on European models, and 
the men who manned the heavy Krupp guns, were trained by a 
German artillerist. Within the defenses were the most recent 
scientific appliances, electric searchlights, torpedo factories, etc. 
The forts were connected by telephones. The harbor defenses 
consisted of submarine mines and a fleet of torpedo boats. 

The Japanese army broke camp at Dojoshu village before 
Port Arthur at i:oo A. m. on November 21st, and marching by 
circuitous and very difficult routes over the outlying hills, some- 
times quite close to the sea at Pigeon Bay, got into line of bat- 
tle before daylight. The moon was in the last quarter, and 
gave very little light ; the sky was quite clear, and the weather 
dry and cool. 

The key of the position was the northwest triple fort on Table 
Mountain, and there the whole weight of the opening attack 
was concentrated. The Japanese field marshal and his staff 
were mostly near the centre of the line, and the heavy siege ar- 
tillery was planted on the best position available near the centre, 
and north to northeast of Port Arthur, five or six miles away, 
with Suishiyeh and the forts right opposite and well in range. 
The first division under General Yamaji occupied the right 
wing, and had the roughest and most broken country to trav- 
erse. Nine batteries of field and mountain guns were got into 
fine positions, on lofty ridges, nearly on the same level and al- 
most within rifle shot of the forts ; while behind the artillery 
lay large bodies of infantry ready for an attack. Brigadier- 
General Nishi had charge of the extreme right, and Brigadier- 



37^ PORT ARTHtTR. 

General Nogi the right centre, near the field marshal. On the 
left, Brigadier-General Hasegawa had his mixed brigade rather 
wider apart, as the hills were not near enough to aid greatly in 
an assault on the forts ; nor were the hills very good as artillery 
positions. Hasegawa had only two batteries, but the flying 
column under Lieutenant-Colonel Masamitsu, that had moved 
from San-ju-li Ho on the south shore road was with him, and 
had a mountain battery, besides two battalions of infantry and 
a thousand cavalry. 

The first shot was fired within two or three minutes of seven 
o'clock, from a battery of thirty guns, just as the day was be- 
coming light enough for gun fire. Then for an hour the Japa- 
nese guns blazed into the Table-Top forts, which with their 
guns of all sizes kept up a spirited reply. In the forts, and in 
the rifle pits on the hillside under the walls, were about one 
thousand infantry ; near the Japanese batteries, trenches had 
been dug in the stony ground during the night, and sheltered 
ravines had been carefully selected, where practically the whole 
of the first division, at least I0,000 men, lay in wait. During 
the first half-hour, the Chinese forts sent 300 shells at the Japa- 
nese trenches, but the elevation was too high, and not a man 
was killed. 

Meanwhile, the Japanese were getting the range, although 
the dense morning mist and the thick clouds of smoke pre- 
vented accurate fire. 

The opening shot of the day, from the Japanese lines, which 
all watched with intense interest, struck within five yards of a 
Krupp gun in the nearest of the three forts. The closeness of 
this shot, in semi-darkness, was a fair indication of what fol- 
lowed. One by one the Chinese guns ceased fire toward 
eight o'clock, and suddenly a great shouting came across 
the valley from the fort. The Japanese infantry were sing- 
ing a march song as they charged the forts, and in a few 
minutes a huge cheer ran all along the line over the hilltops 
and in the valleys where the rest of the Japanese were, and 
great cries of " Kot-ta — Victory ! " The Chinese emptied their 
guns and small arms as the Japanese swarmed up on three 



THE JAPANESE CHARGE. 375 

sides, firing every few yards and then rushing forward. The 
Chinese, not numerous enough for hand-to-hand combat, waited 
no longer, but fled over the edge of the hill, down to the forti- 
fied camps before the town, and the Table Mountain forts dis- 
played the flag of the " Rising Sun." 

After this first success, the rest of the battle was practically 
liltle more than a question of time, although there was still a 
great deal of hard fighting to follow. Neither side had yet lost 
more than fifty or sixty in killed and wounded, and there were 
still many thousand Chinese soldiers to be considered. Had 
the forts been fully manned with plenty of picked marksmen, 
they should have cost the invaders several hundreds if not 
thousands of lives, and should have held out longer. And, if 
the Chinese artillery fire had been as accurate and steady as the 
Japanese, the vast difference in position and shelter should have 
more than compensated for the disparity in numbers. Careful 
planning, rapidity of attack, and individual bravery were all on 
the Japanese side. The Chinese did not, indeed, run at the 
sound of the Japanese fire. They stood their ground manfully 
and tried their best to shoot straight, up to the last minute ; but 
they never attempted to face the foe hand-to-hand, to " Die in 
the last ditch." 

Only one definite counter-attack was made ; a large force, — 
some 2,000 of Chinese infantry with a few cavalry, marched out 
and around the hills westward, nort of the Port Arthur lagoon, 
to turn the Japanese right flank. General Yamaji, who had 
kept under fire, and near the front, throughout the day, detected 
the attempt at once, and dispatched Brigadier-General Nishi 
with the third regiment and the mountain battery, to meet it. 
The extremely rough, broken country rendered movement 
slow, and this part of the battle dragged on until the afternoon. 

The second regiment had occupied the Isusen forts shortly 
after eight o'clock, and the artillery was then ordered forward. 
The guns had come on late from Talien-wan, by forced marches 
night and day, over a very difficult route, and only arrived at 
Dojoshu on the night of the 20th. The same night twenty of 
these large guns had been placed in position, north and west of 



37^ PORT ARTHUR. 

Suishiyeh, and from one to three kilometers from the nearest 
forts. They were supported by the whole of the first division, 
15,000 men, less 2,400 men detailed to garrison Kinchow and 
Talien-wan. Deducting also the regiment of 2,400 sent to head 
off the flank movement in the west, there were 10,000 left be- 
fore the Table Mountain forts. Not more than a third actually 
took part in the storming. Midway between the camp at 
Dojoshu and the large village of Suishiyeh, Field-Marshal 
Oyama and his staff remained during the first part of the day, 
communicating his orders by aides-de-camp, never by flag, or 
flash signal, or bugle, to Yamaji and Hasegawa on the left. 

While Yamaji was attacking the northwest forts, Hasegawa 
engaged the attention of the northeast forts, in order to prevent 
them from concentrating fire on the Japanese right. The Chi- 
nese right wasted their energy on almost bare country, while 
the weight of the Japanese attack fell on the almost entirely 
isolated Chinese left, and by the time the Chinese discovered 
their mistake it was too late. The Shoju, or Pine Tree Hill 
forts opened a heavy fire across Suishiyeh plain, on the hills 
occupied by the Japanese ; but Isu was already finished and the 
whole weight of Japanese artillery was centred on the largest 
Shoju fort. Thus, the Japanese right wing, which had been 
briefly threatened by the forts on its left and the Chinese col- 
umn on its right, was never really in any danger, for while the 
third regiment under Nishi was storming Isu, the second regi- 
ment with its back to the third, beat off the enemy's infantry, 
and the mountain, field, and siege batteries gave Shoju far more 
than it could face. 

It was surprising how the Chinese stood to their guns ; they 
worked like heroes and aimed their guns well. But what could 
a fort or a half-dozen of forts do, against fifty guns hidden in the 
mountains, moving to get better positions when possible, and 
firing systematically and simultaneously at one point. 

A furious fusilade was maintained by both sides for nearly 
two hours; but the Chinese shots got wilder and wilder as the. 
Japanese improved, until finally the Shoju magazine blew up and 
set fire to the sheds inside of the forts. Then, shortly after 



THE SHOJU FORTS. ^'J'J 

eleven o'clock, Hasegawa charged all along the line, and took 
all the eight forts, one by one. The big Shoju fort, which had 
done such determined work was evacuated as soon as it caught 
fire, and for two hours afterward the ruined woodwork burned, 
and the piles of ammunition continued to explode. The second 
largest fort, Liang Leong, or Double Dragon, held out longest. 
Twice the Japanese advancing along a ravine, tried to break 
cover and rush up the hill, but were met by bombs from the 
mortars, and had to get back into shelter and try musketry 
again. Again they came up magnificently at their officers' call, 
and scrambled up the mountain side in the teeth of a galling 
cross fire. At the ramparts, not a Chinaman remained. They 
fled from fort to fort along the high wall, firing as they went, 
and making a stand at every point, till too close for rifles. All 
over the hills they were chased, and for many miles around, 
hardly a hundred yards could be passed without sight of a 
Chinese corpse. Those who escaped got down into the town 
with the main body of the Chinese army. 

Meanwhile, there had been heavy firing, chiefly from infantry, 
between Suishiyeh, Isu and Port Arthur. There was a flat tract 
about three miles square, with low ridges of mud and stones 
across, behind which the Chinese riflemen lay. They had tried 
to make a stand about the walled camps below Isu, but shells 
and shrapnel soon cleared them out. The Japanese then mus- 
tered in the same place about 2,000 men from the right 
wing and right centre, their troops increasing in number every 
minute, and ready to force the town itself. Between these 
camps and the big drill ground at the entrance to Port Arthur 
were some 3,000 Chinese in skirmishing order, making 
the most of every bit of cover and firing desperately. Behind 
them, the Chinese field guns, some dozen in number, tried to 
locate the enemy and occasionally succeeded ; one shell shat- 
tered a corner of the largest camp, where a dense body of 
Japanese stood behind the wall waiting for orders, and killed 
several of them. Still farther back, a big hill which threatened 
the town swarmed with riflemen, who were sheltered by piles of 
stones and abundantly supplied with ammunition. Last of all. 



378 PORT ARTHUR. 

the shore forts were firing a Httle, but could not aid much in the 
melee. 

Steadily the Japanese crept forward from cover to cover, as- 
sisted by artillery from Suishiyeh, until the parade ground and 
the general's pavilion overlooking it had been mastered and 
cleared, and nothing remained but the trenches of Boulder hill, or 
Hakugoku, the town itself, and the shore forts. Along the 
south of the parade ground ran a broad, shallow stream that 
came down the Suishiyeh valley, flowing into a creek west ot 
Hakugoku. Three times the Japanese came out from behind 
the parade ground wall, to cross the bridge, but were driven 
back by a withering hail of bullets. At last they forced it, 
rushed across with a cheer, and spread out over the face of the 
hill, pursuing the Chinese up to the town itself. The second 
regiment fired volleys as it advanced on the town. Not a shot 
was fired in reply. The battle was over as far as Port Arthur 
was concerned. 

The Japanese fleet was not inactive during the assault by the 
land forces. At 10:30 a. m. the Japanese vessels, comprising 
the Matsusima, Chiyoda, Itsukusima, Hasidate, Yoshino, 
. Naniwa, Akitsushima, Takachiho, Fuso, Hiyei, and Kongo 
steamed past Port Arthur, rounding the promontory. The 
Chiyoda here began to fire shells over the forts at a very long 
range. At 4:00 o'clock the fleet returned, passing Port Arthur 
again, at a distance of about six miles, and one of the big forts 
fired at the Chiyoda, but failed to hit her. The Japanese 
admiral did not respond to the fire nor alter his course, but 
steamed slowly on. A few minutes later, as the Chinese troops 
were hurrying down to the harbor, ten torpedo boats dashed 
irom the Japanese fleet, separating in pairs and firing three- 
pounder Hotchkiss guns at the exposed soldiers. The fire was 
briskly responded to by one fort to the left of the harbor, but 
not a single shot told. A steamer which had towed a junk out 
of Port Arthur, was cut off on her return and ran ashore, where 
the crew deserted *her and took to the hills. 

As the Japanese troops reached the edge of the town, driving 
the Chinese before them, a halt was called before the army 



PORT ARTHUR FALLS. 379 

marched in, as the force was not yet assembled in strength. 
This delay enabled the Chinese to take to boats, and scores of 
sampans and junks were soon moving off, some over the lagoon 
to the mountain fastnesses of Lao-tieh-shan promontory in the 
southwest, and some out to sea, in full view of the Japanese 
fleet. When the first division was all assembled before the 
town, with the left wing to the northeast in case the enemy 
should rally and try to dash out, the order was given to enter 
the town and storm the inner fort, Golden Hill. The second reg- 
iment led, firing volleys file by file through the streets, past the 
docks, and the burning army stores, up the hill, and into Ogun- 
san, which was practically abandoned without an effort at de- 
fense. 

During the evening Hasegawa's brigade went over the hills, 
and occupied the two eastern shore forts called the " Mule's 
Jaws." The following morning Yamaji's first regiment marched 
around the lagoon and occupied the peninsula forts, which had 
been deserted during the night. The Chinese had vanished, 
but later it was found that most of them got away along the 
beach past Hasegawa, and the rest westward, in small parties 
under cover of darkness. In such a wide stretch of hilly 
country, it was easy to conceal themselves if they once escaped 
from the vicinity of their foes. Port Arthur was in full posses- 
sion of Marshal Oyama, with the fleet under Admiral Ito safe in 
the harbor. 

Before relating the execrable deeds which followed the taking 
of Port Arthur, it is well to glance at Japanese treatment of the 
wounded, in former battles. In 1877, during the Satsuma re- 
bellion, a benevolent society was founded in Japan, to aid and 
care for the sick and wounded — enemies as well as friends, after 
the manner of the European Red Cross societies. This organ- 
ization distinguished itself admirably, and in 1886, when Japan 
declared its adhesion to the Geneva Convention, the " Hakuaisha" 
was reorganized and formally enrolled on the international list 
of Red Cross societies. In 1893, its membership had reached 
nearly 30,000, including members of the royal family. 

During the war with China, scores and hundreds of Chinese 



380 PORT ARTHUR. 

wounded were received and treated with the same care that was 
given the Japanese, in the permanent military hospital at Hiro- 
shima. In Corea there were two hospitals managed by the 
Red Cross society, and at the front the society had a staff of 
doctors, nurses and attendants, as well as ample hospital sup- 
plies. At the beginning of hostilities, tlie Japanese minister 
of war issued a proclamation, enjoining humanity upon all his 
soldiers, and stating that Chinese atrocities committed in igno- 
rance as to the true meaning of humanity, must not be imitated 
in retaliation. 

In view of these facts, it is difficult to reconcile the preten- 
sions to enlightened civilization which the Japanese had claimed, 
with the horrible atrocities committed by the victorious army, 
during the days following the capture of Port Arthur. 

Only those who saw the acts of inhuman barbarity, can justly 
describe the scenes during the massacre of the whole remaining 
population of Port Arthur — between 2,000 and 3,000 — without 
distinction of age or sex. Said the correspondent of the 
London Times twelve days after the massacre : 

" What happened after Port Arthur fell into Japanese hands, 
it would have been impossible and even dangerous to report 
while on the spot. At the earliest possible moment, every for- 
eign correspondent escaped from the horrifying scene to a place 
where freedom of speech would be safe ; and as we sailed away 
from Port Arthur on the Nagoto Maru eight days ago, almost 
astonished to find ourselves escaping alive from the awful epi- 
demic of incredible brutality, the last sounds we heard were 
those of shooting, of wanton murder, continued the fifth day 
after the great battle. When the Japanese army entered Port 
Arthur on the 21st, beginning a little after two o'clock in the 
afternoon, the Chinese had resisted desperately till the last, re- 
treating slowly from cover to cover, until they got back among 
the buildings on the outskirts of the town. Then at last all 
resistance ceased ; they were thoroughly defeated, and made a 
stampede through the streets trying to hide or to escape, east 
or west as best they might. I was on the brow of a steep hill 
called ' White Boulders,' in Japanese Hakugoku, commandmg a 



KILLING EVERY LIVE THING. 381 

close view of the whole town at my feet. When I saw the 
Japanese march in, firing up the streets and into the houses, 
chasing and killing every live thing that crossed their path, I 
looked hard for the cause. I saw practically every shot fired, 
and I swear positively that not one came from any but Japanese. 
I saw scores of Chinese hunted out of cover, shot down, and 
hacked to pieces, and never a man made any attempt to fight. 
All were in plain clothe?, but that meant nothing, for the soldiers 
flying from death got rid of their uniforms how they might. 
Many went down on their knees, supplicating with heads 
bent to the ground in kowtow, and in that attitude were butch- 
ered mercilessly by the conquering army. Those who fled 
were pursued and sooner or later were done to death. Never a 
shot came from a house as far as I could see, and I could hardly 
believe my eyes, for, as my letters have shown, the indisputable 
evidence of previous proceedings had filled me with admiration 
of the gentle Japanese, So I watched intensely for the slight- 
est sign of cause, confident that there must be some, but I saw 
none whatever. If my eyes deceived me, others were in the 
same plight; the military attaches of England and America 
were also on Boulder hill and were equally amazed and horri- 
fied. It was a gratuitous ebullition of barbarism they declared, 
a revolting repudiation of pretended humanity. 

" Gun shots behind us turned our attention to the north creek 
leading into the broad lagoon. Here swarms of boats were 
moving away to the west, loaded to twice their normal limit 
with panic-stricken fugitives, men, women, and children, who had 
stayed too late in the beleaguered town. A troop of Japanese 
cavalry with an officer, was at the head of the creek, firing sea- 
ward, slaughtering all within range. An old man and two chil» 
dren of ten and twelve years had started to wade across the 
creek ; a horseman rode into the water and slashed them a 
dozen times with his sword. The sight was more than mortal 
man could stand. Another poor wretch rushed out at the back 
of a house as the invaders entered the front door, firing pro- 
miscuously. He got into a back lane, and a moment later 
found himself cornered between two fires. We could hear his 



383 PORT ARTHUR. 

cry for quarter as he bowed his head in the dust three times; 
the third time he rose no more, but fell on his side, bent double 
in the posture of petition for the greatly vaunted mercy of the 
Japanese, who stood ten paces off and exultantly emptied their 
guns into him. 

" More of these piteous deaths we saw, unable to stay the 
hands of the murderery ; more and more, far more than one can 
relate, until sick and saddened beyond the power of words to 
tell, we slowly made our way in the gathering gloom down the 
hill, picking a path through rifle-pits thick with Chinese car- 
tridge cases, and back to headquarters. There at the Chinese 
general's pavilion, facing a spacious parade ground, Field-Mar- 
shal Oyama and all his officers assembled, amid the strains of 
strange music from the military band, now a weird, character- 
istic Japanese march, now a lively French waltz, and ending 
with the impressive national anthem, ' Kaminoga,' and a huge 
roar from twenty thousand throats, 'Banzai Nippon!' All 
were overflowing with enthusiastic patriotism and the delight 
of a day's work done, a splendid triumph after a hard fought 
fight ; none of the Japanese dreamed that their guests from the 
west were filled with horror, indignation and disgust. It was 
a relief to get away from that flood of fiendish exultation, to 
escape from the effusive glee of our former friends, who would 
overwhelm us with their attention which we loathed like ca- 
resses from the ghouls of hell. To have to remain among men 
who could do what we had seen, was little short of torture. 

" Robbed of our sleep on the eve of the battle, and utterly 
exhausted, we lay long next morning until the sound of shooting 
roused us. To our surprise and dismay we found that the mas- 
sacre of Wednesday, which might have been explained though 
certainly not excused on the ground of excitement in the heat 
of battle, the flush of victory, and the knowledge of dead com- 
rades mutilated, was being continued in cold blood now. Thurs- 
day, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were spent by the soldiery 
in murder and pillage from dawn to dark, in mutilation, in every 
conceivable kind of nameless atrocity, until the town became a 
ghastly Inferno to be remembered with a fearsome shudder until 



tl 

nc 



fiVERY NOOK LOOTED. 3 §5 

one's dying day. I saw corpses of women and children, three 
or lour in the streets, more in the water ; 1 stooped to pick some 
of them out to make sure that there could be no possibility of 
mistake. Bodies of men strewed the streets in hundreds, per- 
haps thousands, for we could not count — some with not a limb 
unsevered, some with heads hacked, cross-cut, and split length- 
wise, some ripped open, not by chance but with careful pre- 
cision, down and across, disemboweled and dismembered, with 
occasionally a dagger or bayonet thrust in private parts. I saw 
groups of prisoners tied together in a bunch with their hands 
behind their backs, riddled with bullets for five minutes, and 
then hewn in pieces, I saw a junk stranded on the beach, filled 
with fugitives of either sex and of all ages, struck by volley after 
volley until — I can say no more. 

" Meanwhile, every building in the town was thoroughly ran- 
sacked, every door burst open, every box and closet, every nook 
and cranny looted. What was worth taking was taken, and the 
rest destroyed or thrown into the gutter. Even Mr. Hart, Rent- 
er's war correspondent on the Chinese side, whom we found 
when we entered Port Arthur, was robbed of everything but 
the clothes he had on, while his cook and two scuUy boys in 
the same house were shot at their kitchen stove, while doing 
nothing but their regular work, Mr. Hart himself had told the 
Chinese hotel keeper before the battle not to leave the town, 
because the Japanese would certainly do no harm to citizens or 
property. So thoroughly had been the discipline maintained, 
and so perfect the show of civilized methods in warfare, that 
the present outburst of cold-blooded brutality was the very last 
thing to have been thought possible. 

" The Japanese alleged that the populace of the town had 
been armed with guns and express ammunition, and that the 
army when entering the town had been attacked from the 
houses. I did afterward find cartridges such as these lying 
about ; but I never saw one fired. I never saw any attack from 
the houses, I saw the Japanese firing before they entered, and 
as they entered, without intermission. 

" The Japanese who had been wounded and killed or cap- 



386 PORT ARTHUR. 

tured ill several skirmishes before the day of the battle, had 
been horribly mutilated by the Chinese. We saw several bodies 
along the line of march, and it is said others were found in the 
town, with hands and heads cut off, stomachs opened, etc. And 
some were burned at Kinchow, and one said to be burned in Port 
Arthur. Moreover, placards have been found offering rewards 
and stating prices, for heads, hands, or prisoners. So the Jap- 
anese soldiers swore revenge, and they carried out their vow 
thoroughly in barbarous eastern style. All that can be said is 
that the Chinese committed nameless atrocities which the Japa- 
nese repaid a hundredfold. 

" It is unavoidable that innocent persons must be killed in 
war. I do not blame the Japanese for that alone ; Chinese sol- 
diers dress as peasants and retain their weapons, and attack 
when they can, under cover of disguise. It therefore becomes 
excusable to some extent to regard all Chinese as enemies, with 
or without uniform ; in that the Japanese are plainly justified. 
But regarding them as enemies, it is not humanity to kill them; 
they should be taken alive, I saw hundreds killed after being 
captured and tied. Perhaps that is not barbarity ; at any rate 
it is the truth. On the day of the battle, soldiers fresh from 
the excitement of a hard struggle cannot help being somewhat 
bloodthirsty, perhaps. At any rate their nerves are tense, their 
blood is up, they are violently excited. Not that it is right to 
be so, but it is usual. But the battle was on the 21st, and still 
on the 25th, after four nights' sleep, the slaughter was con- 
tinued. Some allowance must be made for the intense indigna- 
tion of the soldiers whose comrades had been mutilated by the 
Chinese. Indignation is perfectly justifiable ; the Japanese were 
quite right to feel incensed. But why should they express 
themselves in the very same barbarous manner ? Is it because 
they are also barbarous at heart like the Chinese ? Of course 
they say ' No.' Then they will have to prove it, for the fact 
remains that a dozen white men saw these Japanese commit 
these savageries for four clear days after the day of the fight." 

The story of the New York World's correspondent was as 
graphic and as shocking in its details, and included many of 



DISGRACED BEFORE THE WORLD. ^8y 

the same sights which were related by Cowan. He said in 
part : " The story of the taking of Port Arthur wiU be one of 
the blackest pages in history. An easy victory over a Chinese 
mob, and the possession of one of the most powerful strong- 
holds in the world, was too great a strain upon the Japanese 
character, which relapsed in a few hours back to the state from 
which it awakened a generation ago. Almost the entire popu- 
lation found in Port Arthur have been massacred, and the work 
of butchering unarmed and unresisting inhabitants has continued 
day after day until the streets are choked with corpses. The 
march upon helpless Peking or a surrender of China to her foe 
is a small matter in its vital significance compared with this ap- 
palling crime against the nineteenth century, at a moment when 
Japan asks to be admitted as an equal into the family of civi- 
lized nations. The Japanese lost about fifty dead and 250 
wounded in carrying a fortress that would have cost them 
iQ,ooo men had it been occupied by European or American 
troops, and yet the sense of uncontrolled power which let loose 
the savagery which had been pent up in the Japanese under the 
external forms of civilization, has proved the utter incapability 
of the nation to stand the one sure test. Japan stands dis- 
graced before the world. She has violated the Geneva con- 
vention, dishonored and profaned the Red Cross, and banished 
humanity and mercy from her councils. Victory and a new 
lust for dominion have set her mad. 

" All attempts to justify the massacre of the wretched people 
of Port Arthur and the mutilation of their bodies, are mere 
after-thoughts. The evidence is clear and overwhelming that it 
was the sudden breaking down of Japanese civilization under 
the stress of conscious power. The tremendous facts revealed 
by the war so far are, that there is practically no Chinese army in 
existence ; that Japan has been arraying herself in the outward 
garb of civilization, without having gone through the process of 
moral and intellectual development necessary to grasp the ideas 
upon which modern civilization is founded ; that Japan at heart 
is a barbarous nation, not yet to be trusted with sovereign 
power over the lives and property of civilized men. Up to the 



388 PORT ARTHtJR. 

moment Port Arthur was entered I can bear witness that both 
of her armies now in the field were chivalrous and generous to 
the enemy. There was not a stain on her flag. But it was all 
blind sentiment. The Japanese were playing with the Red 
Cross as with a new toy and their leaders were never weary of 
calling the attention of other nations to the spectacle." 

The variety of explanations offered to excuse the atrocities 
was considerable. It was reported from Port Arthur a few days 
after the charges had been made, that the capture of the place 
was indeed marked by regrettable excesses, but the offenders 
were not regular soldiers. It was said that the night after the 
capture of the stronghold, a number of coolies attached to the 
army as laborers came into the town from the camps. These 
men carried swords, in order to obviate the necessity of always 
having regular troops told off for their protection. Unfortunately 
they obtained access to some Chinese stores of liquor, and be- 
came intoxicated. While in this condition they were reminded 
of the atrocious cruelties committed by the Chinese upon de- 
fenseless Japanese prisoners, and became frenzied. All the 
coolies practically ran amuck, and no Chinaman whom they 
met was spared. It was declared that some of the coolies were 
at once arrested, and that Marshal Oyama was already in- 
vestigating the affair, when he received instructions from im- 
perial headquarters at Hiroshima to institute a rigorous inquiry. 

The barbarities practiced by the Chinese against the Japanese, 
which resulted in atrocious retaliation, were fully corroborated 
from many sources. A correspondent of the American Bible 
Society wrote thus from Shanghai : 

" The reported inhuman atrocities of the Chinese are fully con- 
firmed. They were guilty of barbarities too revolting to men- 
tion. A scouting party of Japanese, including an interpreter, 
were captured by the Chinese near Port Arthur just before the 
attack on the fortress. They were fastened to stakes by nails 
through their shoulders, burned alive, and then quartered and 
their ghastly remains stuck up on poles by the roadside. Some 
Japanese members of the Red Cross society were captured by 
the Chinese soldiers and flayed alive. Durmg the attack on 



I'EACE NEGOTIATIONS. 389 

Port Arthur the defenders used explosive bullets. Is it any 
wonder that the Japanese generals issued the order that no 
quarter should be shown ? The track of the retreating army has 
been marked by pillage, rapine, wanton destruction and outrage, 
so that the people welcome the Japanese." 

From a military point of view, the capture of Port Arthur by 
the Japanese was an event of the first importance, while its moral 
effect and its consequent influence upon the diplomatic situation 
was very great. It transferred from one side to the other, all 
the advantages of a fully equipped arsenal and dockyard, occupy- 
ing a commanding strategical position, and therefore modified 
all the conditions, naval as well as military, of the campaign. It 
made the defense more hopeless than ever, and extended the 
chain of Chinese disaster. 

While the war was virtually ended by the fall of Port Arthur, 
VVei-Hai-Wei was yet to be bombarded and surrendered, and 
minor engagements took place between the armies. After the 
complete rout of the armies and navies of China, Li Hung 
Chang, the Chinese viceroy, proceeded to Japan to negotiate a 
peace, and while there his life was attempted by a Japanese 
fanatic; whereupon, the Japanese Emperor commanded an 
armistice. 

This was followed by the treaty of Shimonoseki, which was 
agreed to in April, 1895. By its terms, China surrendered all 
claim to Corea, and ceded to Japan part of Manchuria. She 
agreed further, to pay a war idemnity of 200,000,000 taels. She 
consented, finally, to extend greatly the commercial privileges 
of foreigners, to permit the introduction of machinery, and the 
establishment of warehouses in the interior of the empire. But, 
at this juncture, Russia intervened, objecting strenuously to the 
cession of Manchuria. The Japanese, rather than enter upon a 
desperate struggle with so great a power, yielded to this 
" friendly demand," and the modified treaty was ratified early in 
the month of May. This was followed at once, by a com- 
mercial treaty between China and Russia. 

22 




SANTIAGO. 

1898 

BY HENRY F. KEENAN. 

HE public mind — that is, the mind of the 
people of the United States, was in much 
agitation during the early summer of 1898, 
over the somewhat heedless landing of a 
battalion of marines on the Southern coast of 
Cuba, an expedition ostensibly to prepare the 
way for the seizure of the city and harbor of 
Santiago, where the fleet of the Spanish ad- 
miral, Cervera, had found shelter. The nar- 
rative of the landing of the marines, their strangely inhuman 
exposure to ambuscaded guerillas, on a densely wooded plateau, 
was received by the country with something of the incredulous 
anger that followed the massacre of Balls' Bluff, while the re- 
bellion was in its first stages. It seemed an augury of fatally 
feeble council at headquarters, and the impugned strategists in 
Washington were compelled to prepare a diversion. The army 
must do something, or the country would revolt from the 
agencies in control. 

But there were reasons of a military character, that forbade an 
r.ttack upon the Cuban capital before the fever season had come 
to an end. Santiago was less liable to the ravages of the plague, 
and it was suddenly determined to despatch the only force 
available for active operations, to that point, and attempt the re- 
duction of the city. 

The Fifth Army Corps under Major-General William R. 
Shafter, sailed from Tampa on June 14th. The tawny coasts, 
the dreary stretches of sand, the exotic foliage of Southern 

390 



THEODORE EOOSEVELT. 39I 

Florida, had been for weeks as well k'nown to the eager kinsmen 
of the assembled soldiers, as the White House at Washington or 
Grant's tomb at Riverdde Park. The people, to the uttermost 
ends of the republic, knew from day to day, the numbers, con- 
dition and status of the expedition. Depressing hints of an in- 
adequate commissariat and an ineffective medical train had 
inkled northward, and lent new vigor to the Red Cross activities. 
But the note that struck loudest and bore most encouragingly 
upon the country was, the feeling of the ranks for action. They 
panted for war, now that they had outgrown the novelty of its 
'"■^rnis and pageantry. 

:ong the 16,000 men that comprised Shaffer's army, was a 

regiment which became the joy of the paragraphers and the 
pundits of the press. Theodore Roosevelt, a rich, young New 
Yorker, who had figured frequently as a reformer in the insur- 
rections of New York City politics during the last decade, re- 
signed the responsible place of assistant secretary of the navy, 
to become a subaltern in a regiment designed to do and dare. 
Under the characteristic designation of the " Rough Riders," 
loosevelt almost in a day, gathered the most desperate groups 
of the republic's adventurers. The recruits came from the 
scholastic seclusion of Harvard, from the wild life of the plains, 
from the gilded clubs of the metropolis, the Capauan splendors 
of millionaire palaces. The cowboy and the dude, the pioneer 
and the dilettante jostled each other in the ranks that were 
formed almost in a day. The gathering of this unique organiza- 
tion, the roster of its bizarre personalities, was read from day to 
day, with delight and laughter. The drilling and disciplining of 
the mass, the Croesan gifts of the privates to the regiment, the 
readiness of the aristocratic contingent to fall into the squalid 
details of camp life, made a page of piquant interest fot the 
whole country. 

Roosevelt, himself, was the most interesting figure ; a man of 
letters, eager, impulsive, absorbed in everything he undertook, 
he was indulgently admired by even those who distrusted his 
sagacity or opposed his ideals. 

In his new endeavor, Roosevelt brought the same irrestrain- 



39^ SANtlASO. 

able energy to the task that had given him eminence in othei 
enterprises. He mastered the rubric of the tactics and set to 
work to drill his motley legion with the assiduous delight of a 
Prussian martinet. In the long journey from the regiment's 
rendezvous, at San Antonio, Texas, to Tampa, the Rough Riders 
were a magnet to the inhabitants from far and near. The farm- 
ers and villagers who had read for years of the " 400 " of New 
York, flocked to the railway, to catch a glimpse of the scions 
of these mysterious potencies, transformed into private soldiers 
of the republic. The famous athletes, the notorious cowboys, 
the equivocal of mining camps and Buffalo Bill shows, were no 
less embodiments of wonder to the country through which the 
squadrons passed. In every city they were feted, caressed, 
glorified. But for that matter, no body of men bearing the in- 
signia of the republic were neglected, as the trains bearing 
them, dragged an uncertain course to the decisive point of em- 
barkation. We shall see them in the strain and storm of cruel 
trial, and find that the touch of one hand, impressed some of the 
rare qualities, that make steadfast troops — but even in the al- 
most bouffe heroism, we shall likewise see that soldiers are not 
made, officers are not created by mere proclamations. 

The eager troops had been sweltering and repining on the 
transports seven days, when the start was definitely made. 
Every man of the cramped mass knew the fleet by sight : every 
man invented a pastime to lull the hours and cheat disease of 
its prey. But within a day of embarkation, an army with ban- 
ners could not have been more terrible to the imprisoned host 
than the decks and deeps of the vessels. Life at sea is trying 
at best; language fails to describe its torments, when men are 
packed together, leaving barely space to stretch out in compact 
lines on every superficial foot of deck and cabin. But it was of 
excellent augury for the metal of the crusaders, that Yankee- 
like, they made these discomforts subjects for joke, the depriva- 
tions, hilarious sarcasms. Yet, historically, this continent had 
never witnessed a spectacle so imposing as the sweep of this 
armada from the Florida sand dunes. Even the facile pens of 
the literary corps, could not, like the Egyptian wizard, repro 



THE EYE OF THE ARMADA. 393 

duce from a well of ink, the majestic panorama of the sea pag- 
eant, the mile on mile of ships brilliant in color, animated by 
eager forms, moving in rhythmic unision over the opaline 
waters, through the endless expanse of tranquil sea. The head 
of the fleet faded in the purple mists of the horizon, while the 
rear was emerging from the squalors of Tampa. As a chain is 
only as strong as its weakest link, a fleet of transports is only as 
swift as its slowest craft ; hence the journey Cubaward nevef 
exceeded seven miles an hour. Hearts beat high as the majes- 
tic line moved in the solemnity of the sea, straight southward 
Night fell and the pageant was eclipsed. Lights were forbid- 
den. Under the luminous radiance of the tropic stars, the won- 
drous beauty of the sea was still visible ; the eager thousands 
hung over the rails to note what came to pass. The borealis 
play of lightning that illuminates the southern skies added to 
the enchanting mystery of the scene. The least sentimental 
felt the glow of rapture the poets profess, over beauty so per- 
fect, so whimsically in contrast with the mission of the spectres 
speeding over the soft sunmier sea. 

It required twenty-four hours to get the tail end of the fleet 
on the high seas, that is far beyond the Florida Keys, while the 
head was skirting Cuban waters. Never had this generation 
beheld a spectacle so imposing ; even the armaments, though 
vast during the Civil War, Butler's, Banks' and Burnsides' did 
not number so many vessels nor so many troops, in a single ex- 
pedition, for besides the forty or more vessels of transports, 
there was a squadron of war ships to guard against the possi- 
bility of attack by the enemy. The battleship Indiana, steamed 
far in advance, the eye of the armada. It was the twentieth — 
the sixth day from the setting out at Tampa, that the ship-w^orn 
thousands saw with wonder and relief, the purple horizon above 
the waters of Santiago. Every man knew then the secret, so 
resolutely maintained during the month of waiting and the 
week of sailing. To the Spaniards, neither the sailing of the 
fleet, its direction nor number, even its probable destination, 
were a mystery. For as the straggling line hugged the coast, 
signal after signal went up from the headlands, and knowing 



394 SANTIAGO. 

the capacities of the transports, the coming force could be esti- 
mated to a man. Even the probable objective must have been 
divined, when the head of the column passed the eastern capes 
and swung westward toward Guantanamo and Sampson's sen- 
tries before Santiago. The thousands were worn with confine- 
ment ; land never uprose more hospitably inviting than the 
serrated terraces that spread under the eager eyes of impatient 
Ihrongs. Death or glory, or both, lurked in the mysterious 
deeps beyond, but at least the limbs would be free ; the hateful 
duress of the ship, the torturing sounds of the machinery, the 
deathly smells would be gone. 

Baiquiri, the spot chosen for disembarkation, is a picture 
of nature in its most striking conformation of mountain, sky 
and water. The hamlet lurks furtively at the base of a moun- 
tain spur, that seems to rise sheer 1,200 feet in the air. 
This immense mountain wall is indented irregularly, making 
room for little bights, accessible to small craft. Streams, when 
there is no rain, glide in crystal purity through the wondrous 
herbage. Plateau and plain intermingle in quick succession, as 
the land is penetrated inward and upward. To the seaworn 
soldiers the whole range of valleys and precipice, cliff and pla- 
teau, took on the reality of Robinson Crusoe's isle ; for among 
the glistening palms and giant foliage, could be seen cocoanuts, 
mangoes and other delights of the parched stomach. For 
twelve hours Shafter's legions were boys on a picnic, lost in the 
wonder and delight of the embodied reality of lifelong dreams. 
But the haven of delight was not easily attained ; the sea leap- 
ing and gamboling on the rocky ledges, sent up veils and vol- 
leys of spray, that drenched the lighters, the wading ranks, the 
over-eager thousands. Nor was the picture devoid of wonder, 
even to eyes accustomed to military pageantr3^ 

The army was debarked with every evidence of improvised 
material. By the favoring chance of clear weather at the very 
time storms were the rule, the soldiers were carried through the 
surf to the shore in front of a hamlet variously called Baiquiri 
and Daiquiri. No intimation had been given of the point 
selected for the landing of the army, and there was a fever of 



LANDING THE ARMY. 395 

wild conjecture until Cervera's presence in Santiago bay sug- 
gested the value of that town for a military enterprise. The 
point selected, offered many advantages for the base of an army 
of invasion bent on a prize so tempting as the fleet of Cervera 
and the army of occupation. Furthermore, the town had the 
very appreciable advantage of cable communication with the 
continent, for the French line had its terminus there. But there 
the invitation ended— indeed nothing could well be more unin- 
viting for the display of grand tactics or Napoleonic strategy, 
than the hideous sixteen miles of nature at its wildest, between 
Siboney and Santiago. The land rises sheer from the sea, and 
buttresses two colossal ridges of the mountain plateaux, extend- 
ing all along the coast, save where broken by spectral streams 
or yawning chasms. To make the roads passable for artillery, 
the whole army would be forced to turn into pioneer corps. 
Sherman's corduroying campaign in the Carolinas seemed an 
ordinary task compared to that confronting the men who were 
anxious only to fight, according to the daily asseveration of the 
newspaper Xenophons ! 

While the mass was gathering itself together gaily and con- 
fidently, the two squadrons of the Rough Riders that accom- 
panied the expedition, set out adventurously in the direction of 
the enemy and Santiago. There seems to have been no 
thought of the rudimentary operations of invasion — a careful 
reconnoissance of the country the army must pass over. There 
were bands of Cubans at the service of the general staff — men 
who presumably knew the routes or the surfaces capable of 
being made available for forward movements. But until a 
heavy cost had been exacted, their knowledge was not utilized. 
The Rough Riders, brave to temerity, took no precaution to 
scour the thickets either immediately in front, in the path 
they were following, or the lateral spaces on either hand. Even 
a less enterprising foe than the Spaniard would have been in- 
spired to sanguinary surprises by such unqualifiable laxity. 

Pushing gaily through the dense growth of chapparal — a 
hedge fashioned by nature more obstructive than the chevaux 
de /rise of the military engineer, the thin column was beset 



39^ SANTIAGO. 

when out of reach of support, by bands of invisible ambuscaders. 
The volleys crackling from dense curtains of green, where no 
smoke gave a clue to the point of danger, forced the only tac- 
tics in such a case — a futile charge. The Rough Riders proved 
that they were of the stuff fine soldiers are made of They did 
not break in a panic, as better disciplined soldiers have done 
when caught at the same disadvantage. The scion of a family 
of distinction was one of the first victims. When the news 
reached New York, tenfold importance was given the skirmish. 
That the elect of all the troops, the Rough Riders, should have 
been victims of inconsiderate haste in moving, seemed doubly 
derelict to the million who were regarding the war as an opera 
box spectacle. 

But it must be said for the men of the regiment engaged, 
they never took themselves so seriously. The athletes and 
hunters, the cowboys and social amphytrions enlisted, just as 
they would have joined a polo club or a " Wild West " hunt, or 
any opportunity for manly adventure. They accepted readily 
the direful monotony and half menial camp duties, incident to 
soldiering, with good-natured tolerance, but they seemed to 
think that when battle was in prospect, they were free to seek 
it wherever it was to be found. Hence they met the bloody 
reprisal with buoyant equanimity. Colonels Wood and Roose- 
velt discovered the qualities, admiring friends had preconceded 
them. They faced the bullets from the vernal palisades, as if 
that particular form of self-sacrifice had been their daily habit. 
But the country, while deliriously proud of the men, was not 
disposed to look kindly upon the conditions that brought about 
the ordeal of the favorites, particularly as nothing tangible 
seemed gained. Again the shriek of "mutilation" was raised 
and the fine flower of society demanded reprisal. A strict ex- 
amination revealed that science and nature were the malefactors. 
It was the inhuman Mauser bullet that made the dead unrecog- 
nizable, or made the gashes seem the furious slashes of insensate 
hate. But there was a still ghastlier agency in disfiguring the 
dead — even the wounded — an agency that no care could prevent 
or waylay, no prescience turn aside. 



INVISIBLE AMBUSCADES. 397 

Under the glistening chapparal, among the razor edged wall 
of the cactus, in the dark lush foliage, lurks and preys a malevo- 
lent little monster called the " land crab." The odor of human 
blood electrifies the scaly members of this obscene marauder. 
No sooner had the Mauser completed its maiming work, than 
the land crab, " devil's claw " the natives call it, claws its way, 
with incredible velocity, to the prostrate body. In a flash its 
wiry tentacles are pinching out particles of flesh from the ex- 
posed places. These in every case were the mutilators of the 
dead — Spanish as well as Yankee. Nor was the branding sum- 
mer sun a less merciless agent of torture. It fell in festering 
heat upon the unacclimated skin of the invader ; it parched his 
flesh, it blurred his aching eyes and blinded him, as he groped 
feverishly in the -assassin thickets; for assassin they were. The 
mere touch of the flesh upon certain cacti, the inhaling of certain 
blooms, stung the flesh, poisoned the blood and disturbed the 
action of the cerebral system. In the foetid gloom of the thicket, 
squirmed and hissed a vipery brood of uncanny and monstrous 
things, their eyes glowing in spots, like a firmament of tiny 
stars, and even where these repulsive and loathly things were 
not present, the hint of them insidiously spread by the Cubans, 
filled the mind of the exploring soldiery with that terror of the 
unseen to which the ordeal of the battle is mere football or polo. 

In the end, when the column had endured such agonies — the 
mind shrinks from further relating — when a score or more had 
been slain, the point was made secure by a strong earthwork 
circumvallating the plateau. Spasmodic attacks and venomous 
defense alternated, until the whole force Shafter had at his dis- 
posal reached the topmost height, forming a vast natural bul- 
wark about the lower plateau — upon which the city of Santiago 
spreads in a confused net work of alleys to the water's edge. 
The Spaniards always under cover, had little to fear from the 
most frenzied rushes of our soldiers, and frenzied is really the 
only term to qualify the strange onset that followed the fitful 
arrival of the divisions concentrated about the beleaguered city. 

In all warfare where an army attacks, the first work is the 
planting of guns to concentrate a destructive fire on the point 



398 SANTIAGO. 

chosen for assault by the hne. As has been seen, the work 
from the base of operations at Siboney was impracticable, mili- 
tary men said, for the infantry. The hauling of artillery, capa- 
ble of breaking the Spanish defenses, implied days at least of 
very hard road-making by every available man in the army. In 
this dilemma the Federal commander thought that the Cubans, 
who were not exactly distinguished as soldiers, could be made 
available as pioneers — sappers and miners, as the road-makers 
are called. But the lofty pride of the " patriots " refused all 
such service. They were willing to march and fire, when the 
troops of the republic were in sufficient force to assure them 
from a charge by the enemy ; they were ready likewise to hover 
where death mowed down the Spaniards, ply the machete on 
the wounded, disfigure the dead and despoil all — but they could 
not be brought to the work of clearing the roads or aiding the 
.success of the expedition. 

As in the Civil War, so in this brief promenade in Cuba. 
The Yankee soldier proved himself as full of ingenuity in over- 
coming natural obstacles as he has always shown himself equal 
to the deadliest dangers. The roads were made passable, the 
bulk of the army was within striking distance within a week of 
the debarkation. Then the vivacity of the soldiers either an- 
ticipated orders or exaggerated them, a series of desperately 
bloody combats went on at every point of impact with the 
enemy. These were signalized by an almost romantic disre- 
gard of death, on the part of the soldiers, and an almost equal 
absence of intelligent directions on the part of the directing 
commander. The men charged up artfully defended acclivities, 
swarmed over barbed wire obstructions, through stone walls, 
through dykes and over earthworks — bent only on pushing 
forward — no matter how invincibly defended. 

Sergeant Oursley of the Third Regulars, unconscious that he 
was adding to the resources of scientific narrative, charged his 
mind with this moving picture of the advance : 

" On the morning of June 24th the Rough Riders set out to 
take up a position in advance of the others, and in fact, ventured 
iar out beyond the skirmish line. As a matter of fact, those 



EQUANIMITY OF THE TROOPS. 399 

fellows, brave and fearless as they are, and deserving of great 
praise and credit, actually conceived the idea they could 
take Santiago, themselves, and then return and tell the rest of 
the army how it was done ! They were overdaring and ad- 
vanced farther ahead than they were ordered to go. It was 
about seven o'clock in the morning when the two forward troops 
were moving slowly ahead, that they were suddenly fired at from 
one of the outer trenches, hidden from view by the underbrush, 
where the enemy were concealed. They were taken by surprise, 
but stood their ground uncommonly well, although their relief 
was fully a quarter of a mile in the rear, and their support 
still further behind. Colonel Wood and Lieutenant-Colonel 
Roosevelt went at once to the front and were in the thick- 
est of the fight. It is little less than a miracle that either 
escaped with his life, Roosevelt, when the first volley was 
fired, quickly dropped his sword and side arms, and picking 
up a rifle stood by the boys and fired shot after shot with 
them as long as the skirmish lasted. He is idolized by his 
men, and his daring on that day still further endeared him to 
them." 

Millions followed with an interest tinged with anguish, the 
exasperatingly inconsequent reports of the landing of the troops : 
the joyance and even jocundities of the men, as they met the 
needs of an entirely untried undertaking. It was indeed a time 
of cheers and laughter, as the 16,000 scrambled from the 
prisons the ships had become, and made for the jocund shore 
in the shallops provided for the work. That there was any 
serious ordeal before them never seemed to strike the men. 
With the curious docility of the soldiery of a republic, they in- 
vested the commanders with prescience and capacity to meet all 
that might be humanly prepared against them. Even the lack 
of the commissariat, irksomely evident so soon as the masses 
were landed, did not suggest grumbling. In the exhilaration of 
the novel, it was rather jocose raillery than, the ill-nature that 
precedes gloom and demoralization. The circumscribed beach 
and limited space of Baiquiri, were soon overcrowded and then 
the legions began to spread out— taking the form of an advance 



400 SANTIAGO. 

— unpremeditated in the plan of battle. Hence it came to pass 
that skirmishes, more or less sanguinary, were fought entirely 
outside the calculation of the commander. But for that matter, 
there was no need for elaborate strategy. The Spaniards had 
simplified the campaign by relinquishing the landing, by retreat 
from the imposing bulwark nature provided — the sixteen miles 
of impenetrable jungle and toilsome bridle paths, leading from 
the sea hamlets to the city of Santiago. 

The various detachments marched toward Santiago apparently 
indifferent to any of the safeguards, always redoubled as the re- 
sistence of the enemy becomes weaker — for then there is good 
reason to suspect. It was due to Spanish negligence, rather 
than to the prevoyance of the commanders of the invading 
column, that every hillside was not littered with our dead. And 
the army soon had proof of this : not only in the murderous 
surprise of the handful of Rough Riders, but in the deadly 
efficacy of the primitive blockhouses buttressing rude intrench- 
ments and barbed wire barricades, holding the charging columns 
suspended in the onrush, while perishing under the withering 
flight of Mauser bullets. From the moment the columns set out 
from the sea, such fighting as went on was whimsically like the 
result of individual enterprise, or as the correspondents ironically 
expressed it " squad fights." That is, bodies of men, pushing 
out adventurously and meeting opposition, instead of making 
back for the main body, as all well organized campaigning ex- 
acts, stood their ground and held it until other squads in curiosity 
or a spirit of adventure joined them ! This was brave, even bril- 
liant, but it was in no sense war. A foeman of the least address 
or resolution would have cut off every vestige of these sporadic 
forces. Indeed, the contrast between the determined resolution 
of the Spaniards, when in line, and their incomprehensible lag- 
gardness when every chance coveted by an inferior force was 
heedlessly abandoned to them, would argue that the defence on 
General Linares' part was purely perfunctory. 

During the Civil War — to go no farther, we saw innumerable 
mstances of forces vastly inferior to Linares', contesting a Federal 
advance inch by inch and finally repulsing it in disaster. In the 



THE; REGULARS. 40I 

Red River expedition in 1864, General Banks undertook to con. 
quer Shreveport and Central Texas, by a movement not unlike 
Shafter's. His advance was marked by nearly the same 
grotesque disdain of military axioms. He was made to pay the 
penalty by a defeat, that under other circumstances would have 
imperilled the whole campaign. But the Spaniards, having re. 
linquished the striking advantage the Morro would liave given 
them in a defence of the coast line, merely "annoyed" the ad- 
vance over the hills. It was their unsystematic plan and 
desultory execution which betrayed Shafter into the final series 
of what for a time looked like bloody repulse, at San Juan and 
El Caney. Indeed — it is no exaggeration, no undue pride in 
our incomparable Regulars, that impels the assertion, that had 
it not been for the inexpugnable resolution of the compact mass 
of Regular soldiery, entrusted with the mission, Shafter's move- 
ment would have ended as Banks' ended. From the memorable 
exploits of Napoleon's invincible phalanxes in the first Italian 
campaign to the most stirring of their prodigies at Ulm and 
Eckmuhl, soldiery in action never surpassed the heroic resolu- 
tion, evinced by General Lawton's, Chaffee's and Kent's bat- 
talions. They stood in line of battle, when standing meant in- 
cessant exposure — swift, sure hurt ; they maintained the perilous 
line, taken when each Spaniard in front by virtue of arms and 
shelter equalled ten of the invaders. They could not be moved 
by the maelstrom of death each discharge of the murderous 
Mausers inflicted ; they were as impassive in the red glare of 
the perfectly directed volleys, as in the breathing space afforded 
by the trenches ; they stood calm, majestic, agonizing ; they 
died and made no outcry ; they charged and never wavered in 
the alignments, they lay prone in the hideous trenches and 
never for an instant could it be detected that they were not as 
terribly effective thus spread out, as in the rush of the charge or 
the sinister line of battle. 

Indeed, the Regular was to the land combat, what the impos- 
ing Texas, Iowa, or Indiana, were to the fleets — a mechanism so 
perfect that nothing but complete destruction could impair that 
prodigious force. Against this indomitable mass, the Spanish 



403 SANTIAGO. 

impetuously spent themselves, in the three days of determined 
fight which brought the campaign to an end. 

Once the small army was distributed for its work, the plan ol 
campaign, simple enough from the disposition of the Spanish 
leader's hmitations, went on with definite finality. Each version 
of the advance differed, according to the relations and partialities 
of the recording scribe. Each of these active observers saw 
■with an eye trained to effect. The campaign in front of Sevas- 
topol evoked no more diversity of unbridled eulogy or acrimo- 
nious commentary. General Shafter was boded forth alternately 
as cowering in his tent far in the rear, ignoring all that was going 
on ; bewildering the war junta in Washington by clamor for re- 
inforcements, or stolidly forcing forward his inadequate forces to 
gain the cheap renown of a Fourth of July conquest. This 
diversity of tone extended to the uttermost detail of organiza- 
tion. It was clamorously set forth that the provision for the 
nourishment of the harassed ranks was derisory ; that within an 
hour of the fleets and transports, within twenty-four hours' sail 
of New York, the sweltering, the maimed and the halt were on 
half rations. And in the dire hour of death, when the Mauser 
was mowing down the onrushing and misled ranks, there were 
no provisions for the wounded ; no surgeons, no tents, no medi- 
cine, in anything like reasonable proportions. One surgeon to 
a regiment was the rule during the carnage at San Juan and 
El Caney. Ten minutes to an operation, the amputation of a 
limb, or even the more serious attempts that surgeons now un- 
dertake in the very crisis of battle, was the allotted space. 
Surgeons wrought among the mangled, and fell fainting in the 
pestilential air; the wounded ranged in helpless prostration, like 
cattle in a slaughter pen, waiting their turns, from early morning 
until the merciful darkness fell with the dewy coolness of the 
tropic clinie. 

These painful disclosures were made all over the battlefield, 
and so circumstantially corroborated, that the charge cannot be 
disputed. Even in the comparatively facile affair of removing 
the wounded who reached the sea, the lugubrious tale of mingled 
inefficiency and peculation found more sinister material ; the 



LINARES m A TRAP. 4O3 

transports allotted the wounded were unfit for them. The able 
bodied and influential were awarded the comfortable quarters, 
while the mutilated and helpless fared as they could. 

Held by the arms of the sea as in a trap, General Linares, the 
Spanish commander of the Santiago district, from the first, was 
under no illusion as to his fate. He had no food, little ammu- 
nition, and few or none of the military appliances essential to 
the defence of the vital points which, if adequately armed in 
time, might have made the capture of Santiago quite as formida- 
ble an undertaking as Havana was generally admitted to be. 
It is, however, a misuse of the term, as ordinarily understood in 
military parlance, to speak of the sporadic combats and the be- 
wildered movements as an advance or a siege. Indeed, there 
was not an hour from the landing of Shafter's 16,000, until the 
moment the wretched Toral handed over his cartel, that a sanely 
led diversion to our flank or rear, would not have withered the 
army as a strong sunshine on new snow. 

Not that the march was too fast, nor the seizure of the various 
points misjudged, but that isolated" regiments were thrown for- 
ward beyond available touch with their supports ; above all be- 
cause this extraordinary army adventured itself far beyond the 
guns of the fleet, without a single piece of artillery to defend 
itself, in the event of a strong attack on any given point. In 
war at least, if not in morals, the end justifies the means. It 
may be that General Shafter knowing from secret sources the 
exhausted, supine and unfit condition of his enemy, felt that the 
ordinary precautions of war were a waste of time. Nothing 
else can explain the thrusting of his grotesquely inadequate 
forces beyond the range of instant reinforcements. But what 
seemed more inexplicable than all this happy-go-lucky improvi- 
dence, was the persistent disregard of that most vital of all ele- 
ments to a fighting column, victualling and shelter. 

Yet the intrepid bands who found themselves in possession of 
the advanced line, and for days none of them knew how, fell in 
the sticky morasses and mountain mud, bent under dripping 
branches, or packed themselves together for vital warmth, with 
not even the sustenance of a hardtack. Nor is it without sig- 



SANTIAGO. 

nification, to keep in mind that none of the prerequisite engj- 
neering details obligatory upon the armies marching in an ene- 
my's country, seem to have been thought of. The men who 
were launched out under the shower of Mauser bullets were like- 
wise the builders of bridge and road, of abattis, breastwork and 
trench. 

Apparently the guiding mind of the United States army was 
apprehensive that the Spanish commander would, on the mere 
apparition of the Tampa army, sacrifice the city and carry his 
garrison to swell the forces of the Captain-General northwest- 
ward. Hence, having secured the isolated advanced post of 
Siboney, he spread a thin line to the northwestward in order 
to shut the beleaguered garrison in, or to at least make it impos- 
sible for any considerable number to march out before the be- 
siegers could make themselves felt in sufficient force to check 
the exodus. 

It was these columns which brought on the fitful and mo- 
mentarily fierce combats of San Juan Hill and El Caney. Our 
thin line on attaining within five miles of Santiago, on the north- 
west and a proportionate distance from the arm of the sea, which 
forms the bay southward to Aguadores, could see no Spanish 
line, could discern no troops, but for an instant felt the sting of 
the Mausers, and at certain points, the deadly explosions of 
artillery. It was the very intelligence of our soldiery that made 
the situation difficult. For every man could see, even though 
devoid of military training, that with anything like equal force, 
the defenders, on such terrain, could hold ten times, yes, a 
hundred times their own numbers at bay. 

With characteristic nonchalance too, the majority of the regi- 
ments decided their own plan of operations ; fixed the date of 
assault and surrender for the republic's birthday, the fourth of 
July ! No official mandate had gone out to that effect, but it is 
perfectly obvious from the strenuous onrush of isolated regi- 
ments and brigades, that each commander secretly determined 
to signalize his force by a triumph on Independence Day. 
It is not unlikely that General Shafter had this whimsically 
laudable purpose in his own mind. It is the only admissible 




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THE FLOWER OF TJIE ARMY. 



407 



conjecture of what would otherwise have been a criminal ad- 
venture. 

But ill as the Spaniards were prepared, and desultory as were 
their onsets, it was seen that the shrewdly planted lines of block- 
houses and the murderous entanglements of barbed wire mask- 
ing ditches and other not badly conceived impediments, forced 
a recourse to the orderly appliances of siege operations. The 
heavy guns capable of knocking down blockhouses and demol- 
ishing the defences, could alone be depended upon to make the 
advance of soldiery possible without slaughter, criminally out 
of proportion with the end to be achieved. It was fully four 
days after the heads of columns, which may be called squadrons 
of discovery, reached the decisive points of defence, that a few 
straggling guns were heard near the strong point of El Caney 
and the hill of San Juan. The flower of the army — its strong 
rock of defence, in fact — seven regiments of Regulars, reached 
the crucial point on the extreme right, the Malakoff as one 
might call it, in a small way, of the situation, after an all-night 
march, foodless but unimpairably ready. It tells most eloquently 
the difficulties of the woodland march, the mountain impasses, 
the roaring streams, the impenetrable paths, that a large per- 
centage of these men, who had battled the Indians in the 
West, dropped exhausted in their tracks and were reported for 
twenty-four hours at least, as stragglers. Nor is it without its 
significance that the line when rushed into order for battle, was 
found so mixed up, that stragglers from one regiment were 
found in bewildered groups searching for some place to fight, 
unable to find their own commands. As the outcome proved, 
General Shafter's objective fulfilled the first maxim of sound 
military tactics ; to meet and beat the enemy wherever his loss 
would be greatest, and the consequences most decisive to the 
assailant. 

Before the armies quit their camps in the Union, an elaborate 
series of instructions had been given each soldier, providing for 
his welfare in the new conditions he was about to face. First of 
these was, that no water was to be used without boiling. And 
in keeping with other shortcomings, brought to light by the 
23 



408 SANTIAGO. 

very first manceuver, it was found that the soldier's kit was un- 
provided with the means of heating, even had the conditions 
been favorable. Luck, however, was the god ruling the planet 
of our armies, as well as our navies. For almost every road of 
the mountain-side was broken by rivulets of clear pellucid water, 
refreshing as nectar to the sweltering legions as they toiled pain- 
fully upward and onward. 

It was reconmiended to the legions too, that they should 
never sleep upon the ground, and this admonition soon became 
the derisive byword of the maltreated ranks, stretched for miles 
on the soaking grass or in the muddy tracks of the column it- 
self, as it advanced. It is very doubtful whether a single man 
in the expedition was wholly dry at any time from the moment 
the march began, until the gates of Santiago opened in sur- 
render. 

The Cuban contingent, while unprovided with clothing and 
destitute of arms, never failed to have its hammock, and while 
the men who did the fighting burrowed in the mud and under 
the dripping foliage, the Cubans were at ease, swinging from 
the trees in aerial beds. Some of the complaints sounded with 
shrillness by the correspondents, were indicative of the naive 
ignorance of the men that made them, and the soldiery who 
endured them. It was held a great hardship that there should 
be nothing to eat but " hard tack " and salt meat. Yet during 
the Civil War, the two million and more of men who fought 
between i86i and 1865, never dreamed of anything better, save 
when in camp and far from the battlefield. The strategists of the 
campaign, however, had overlooked the necessity of having this 
simple food in abundance, and within reach, for, as there were 
no roads, no vehicles were at hand to accumulate stores at such 
points as the heads of columns were directed to. 

General Young was despatched from the base at Baiquiri first. 
He was to have had a strong corps, but the precipitancy of his 
march and the impassibility of the roads forced him to do the 
brunt of the fighting with the brigade of Regulars, the Rough 
Riders and the Second Massachusetts. This march to the 
north and east of Santiago was determined upon, in order to 



GENERAL YOUNG's ADVANCE. 409 

separate General Linares' army from an auxiliary force of 7,000 
at Guantanamo — to the eastward. It also provided for an ultimate 
enfolding of the north and west debouches from the beleaguered 
city, as well as the prevention of reinforcements threatened 
from places to the north and west. The cavalry had no horses, 
nor could they use them if they had ; the officers of all ranks 
were likewise dismounted during the earlier stages of the 
march. But it is a misuse of words to call the advancing 
movement a march. The troops were really more in the pre- 
dicament of Alpine climbers, or bushmen compelled to slash 
their way through the impenetrable wall of obstinate growth 
spreading out of gulch sides and rock-ribbed juttings, where na- 
ture had played her wildest volcanic pranks at some unknown 
seismic epoch. 

" Altares," is the name given by the Cubans to the corrugated 
fretwork of ridges that break up the country into territory 
adapted more for the passage of birds of the air, than man or 
beast. While not precisely like the famous lava bed lands on 
which General Canby fought thirty years ago, in Oregon, th'j 
veterans among the Regulars, who made the journey from 
Siboney to the gates of Santiago, saw a painful resemblance. 
Now when the land itself uprose in forbidding obstinacy, the 
Spaniards began the defence which they declined at the sea- 
shore. That the invaders made headway, is the extraordinary 
part of this extraordinary campaign ; for in answering the well- 
studied volleys from unseen sources, our toiling masses were 
forced to take aim at an angle of almost fori:v-five degrees, al- 
most vertically in the air. But quite as trymg as this, in fact 
immeasurably more arduous to limb and brain, was the labor of 
dragging the body up what was in effect sheer acclivity, in 
many parts of the advance. More depressing even than the 
implacable resistance of earth and wood, there was no sign 
either by traveled wood paths or cursory openings, that the im- 
mense mountainous circumvallation ended anywhere. It shut 
in the horizon completely ; the most vivid fancy could conceive 
no city in the abysmal deeps of this rugged nature. But the 
maps, liberally supplied the ranks, showed El Caney, San Juan 



4IO SANTIAGO. 

and other inhabited hamlets, at points of vantage for the assault 
upon Santiago, as well as excellent bulwarks for a capable line 
of defence. 

The Rough Riders debouched through the density of the wood 
upon what was called the " hog back " and on reaching that 
fateful plateau, seared with fissures and bristling with chapparal, 
found themselves enfiladed by an unseen enemy. The hilarious 
Riders, on foot, were caracoling through the thorny way, en- 
livening the solemn stillness of the woods by the jocosities that 
seem part of the exuberance of our diversely mixed blood, 
during hours of danger. Whether things were going well or 
ill, whether the rations were scant or abundant, you might hear 
from end to end of the line, mingled with more sinister excla- 
mations, the grotesque humors and fanciful slang, that ex- 
presses the joviality of good nature, good humor and tliat semi- 
serious levity, which it is so difficult for other peoples to com- 
prehend. For a breathless half-hour, death was the chorus to 
the Rough Riders' jokes. A score of the light-hearted merry- 
makers was stretched quivering or silent on the palpitating 
sward, for the lieat was so intense that the very earth seemed 
to rise and fall as it exhaled the hot, pungent odors of the dank, 
decaying vegetation. It was here, and at this time, that young 
Hamilton Fish fell ; that the journalist Marshall intrepidly ven- 
turing to " get all the news," reeled to the earth fairly riddled 
with Mauser balls. But though the first reports represented 
this episode as something of an unauthorized escapade on the 
part of the Riders, it was really part of General Young's scheme 
to seize the outlying points, commanding the Santiago entrench- 
ments. 

By a road somewhat easier than that which fell to the Roose- 
velt companies. General Young reached a point parallel, and 
forced the enemy to rush backward to the blockhouses of 
Sevilla. These were perched far above the " hog back " ; to at- 
tain them the Regulars, patient as pack horses, were forced to 
use hands, and in some cases men were seen holding overhang- 
ing branches in their teeth, to steady themselves for an upward 
lunge. The observant army officers set it down that tne climb 



TENANTLESS HOMES OF EASE. 4II 

was never at less an angle of thirty degrees, and often forty. 
But when death had taken its tale ; when the herculean climb 
had ended, a paradisiac vision rewarded the astonished column. 
Spreading far away on every hand, far as the enraptured eyes 
could follow, on the vast plateau, the villas, haciendas, home- 
steads, of the Santiago's well-to-do, glimmered and glistened 
like friendly monitors. But the promises to the hope were 
broken to the heart, for the gay walls and enchanting gardens 
were broken and in ruins ; wild plants, of inconceivably luxuri- 
ant growth, covered paths, once symmetrical and solacing ; walls 
once gay with the hues the natives love to employ in decoration, 
were mere mosques of paved elegance. For years the marau- 
ders of the " patriot " army had made these homes of ease and 
leisure, tenantless. The lizard and the wild fowl perched where 
music and laughter once resounded. The cost of this vision, 
the conquest of the plateau was heavy, the action is known as 
the battle of La Guasimas, June 24th. 

Meanwhile, the army was still crawling, clambering and fight- 
ing onward from the seashore, in paths still further to the north- 
west, aiming at the furthermost bastions of Santiago, El Caney 
and San Juan. Sevilla was in a direct line not more than three 
miles, but these three miles took the exhausted soldiery from 
eight hundred to a thousand feet above the starting point. El 
Caney is six miles from Sevilla, and the army had no sooner 
clutched the vantage, than it was obvious to the group in com- 
mand that the advance must be instant or the army would be 
endangered. But the very completeness of the clutch on Se- 
villa, added to the mountain of difficulties that discovered them- 
selves, curiously enough, only as the troops advanced. For 
food and supplies vitally essential to the army and the guns, 
could not be hoped for in time to put the men in shape for an 
advance, or what was still more probable, a massed attack from 
the Spaniards, whose lines grew ominously closer and more 
compact, as they were driven backward. To add to the tor- 
ments of the time, a series of rainstorms poured down, and the 
soil where exposed to the sun became like partly dissolved 
bricks. Every depression in the ground became a rivulet, and 






y -..7 
I' 






'II 

•I 
• ) 

< i' 'i 
fin I''' 

imr\'i'\ 







EL CANEY MUST FALL. 



413 



every ridge a waterfall. Roads, or what had been semblances 
of roads, became yellow streams, rapid and even dangerous to 
the infantry. There were veterans present who were reminded 
of the famous " mud march " of the Army of the Potomac, 
brought to a pause by the impossibility of moving over such 
footway. The dilemma was for a moment so serious, that sug- 
gestions were made to General Shafter to suspend the northwest 
movement, and by capturing a small town in the bay farther 
southward, secure a base nearer the investing line. But the 
troops were already enroute, and the northwest movement con- 
tinued and, whimsically enough, the nearness of the Fourth of 
July stimulated the officers to undertake the impossible. This 
was on the 29th of June when the council of war was held. 
Officers who had been part of the army in the Civil War, looked 
with some distrust upon the ability of our over-willing ranks to 
withstand the deadly volley of the Mauser, under the fatal dis- 
advantages of a powder that betrayed our lines to the Spaniard 
at every shot. At the least calculation, one Spaniard was in 
offensive qualities equal to five of the invaders. 

For most of our men were armed with the old-fashioned Spring- 
field rifle, which is as out of date now as the ungainly Queen 
Bess when the Enfield came in. The Spaniards could count 
on killing anything bearing the semblance of life at a distance 
of nearly two miles, and this had happened frequently under the 
horrified eyes of the officers. No tactics, no manoeuvering, 
could compensate the invading lines for this almost super- 
natural advantage. Even that last resource of a perplexed 
general, movements by the flank, were unavailable from the 
density of the thickets and the lack of roads. 

Now, standing far out from Santiago and covering the ap- 
proach in every direction which we were obliged to pursue, 
stood what was called the fort of San Juan. But to reach that, 
the crenelated village of El Caney must first be in our hands. 
From the counsels came the determination to assault El Caney 
at dawn on the first of July, Generals Young and Chaffee were 
given the post of danger, while General Lawton was directed to 
swing around northwestward, to be in a posture to give the 



414 SANTIAGO. 

decisive blow. Reconnaissances were, however, essential, and 
General Lawton made these with three brigades. The gist of 
this resolution, so momentous for thousands of bedraggled 
soldiery, foodless and shelterless, became known in the mys- 
terious way that army secrets have of conveying themselves to 
<:hose on the alert for them. The men dared light no fires for 
the Spanish grape, as vi^ell as the Mausers commanded every 
inch of the plateau carefully studied in advance by its defenders. 
General Chaffee, through the night edged his men through the 
death-pits to within striking distance of El Caney, where, by 
unheard-of toil, they entrenched themselves. Pits guarded by a 
thick ridge of earth, covered the entire force by daylight. In 
these rifle-pits, as they were called, the men found a reward for 
their toil when the fury of the battle began next day. The 
general and staff knew that the Spaniards had defended them- 
selves by all the appliances at their command. But it was not 
suspected, until the battle began, how intelligently, even 
astutely, they had taken advantage of every favoring un- 
dulation, preparing surprises where least expected, and masking 
ambuscades almost in front of the rifle-pits. But the invading 
force could neither advance nor retreat without the capture of 
this fort or series of forts. . . . 

The sun rises and the day breaks on the Cuban earth almost 
at the same instant. There is no slow dawn as in our northern 
climes, and as if in mirage the invading hosts saw the sun and 
the flash of the enemy's guns simultaneously. The advance 
was ordered. Then the fateful certainty of the Regulars' onset 
displayed itself. Wherever the fight fell upon the Regulars, 
there the work that the trained soldier is expected to do was 
done calmly, intrepidly, with no fanfare of theatric show. At 
a crisis in the combat, when the stoutly defended hill of San 
Juan was working slaughter with its Mausers, Lieutenant 
Parker of the Thirteenth Regulars made his way to an opening 
between that regiment and its neighbor on the line. There was 
a slight gap in the inverting ranks, where the ground rose to a 
knoll. Upon this the lieutenant set a battery of four Gatling 
guns of the newest and most murderous pattern, ihese four 




ARMS AND AMMUNITION, 1898. 

{For description^ see next page.) 



Arms and Ammunition, 1898. 



Numbers refer to illustrations on preceding page. 



1. Springfield Rifle. 

2. Krag-Jorgensen Magazine 

Rifle. 

3. Springfield Cartridge. 

4. Krag-Jorgensen Cartridge. 

5. 6-inch Johnson Solid Shot 

with Soft Cap. 

6. Sims- Dudley Pneumatic 

Gun, limbered up. 

7. Projectile for Sims-Dudley 

Gun. 

8. Maxim 1 1^ -inch Automatic 

Machine Gun. Fires 300 
one-pound shell per min- 
ute.) 

9. Feed-box for Maxim Gun. 

10. 15-inch Pneumatic Coast 

Defence Gun. 

11. 3-inch Rapid-fire Fletcher 

Field Gun. 

12. 10 - inch Breech - loading 

Rifle on Disappearing 
Carriage. 

13. Gatling Field Gun with 

Gravity Feed. 

14. Fixed Ammunition for 

Rapid-fire Guns. 

33-pounder (4-inch 

gun.) 
9 pounder. 
6-pounder. 
3-pounder. 
2/^-pounder. 
one-pounder. 
15- Form and relative size of 

416 



United States Service 
Powders. 

Cordite Smokeless. 
Peyton Smokeless for 

6-pounders. 
Lafin and Rand 

Smokeless for field 

and siege guns and 

Howitzers. 
Hexagonal Prismatic 

(not smokeless). 
Dupont Smokeless 

for 1 0-inch Rifle. 
Dupont Smokeless 

for 1 2-inch Rifle, 

16. Colt Automatic Gun, 

(speed, 400 shots per 
minute). 

17. 5 -inch Siege Gun, 

(12 ft. long, weight 

3,000 ft)S.). 

18. H o t c h k i s s 6-pounder 

Rapid-fire Gun. 

19. Hotchkiss Rapid-fire Am- 

munition. 

Armor-piercing 

Steel Shell. 
Shrapnel. 
Case Shot. 
Common Shell. 
Complete cartridge. 

20. Hotchkiss 2-pounder mouH" 

tain Gun. 

21. Gun Mule. 

22. Gun-carriage Mule. 
'23. Ammunition Mule. 



THE PITILESS GATLING. 417 

pitiless instruments ground out death as a coffee mill grinds out 
its aromatic grain. The effect was instant, visible, heartrending 
— even though it was the enemy who suffered. The bullets 
sent in a hail, unceasing, carefully aimed, withered all semblance 
of life, all attempt at cohesive resistance out of the blockhouse 
or its defenders. This significant episode had no journalistic 
witnesses. It was part of the prescribed work of the Regulars. 
It had the effect of half a brigade, but in all the dithyrambic 
details of the battle there is nowhere a word of mention of it. 
Possibly because it is the conviction of the volunteers, the scribe 
and the on-looker, that the Regular is in some subtle sense a 
creature of war ; that danger is his delight, his element ; that 
overcoming the impossible is part of his training; that to deal 
death and make no display, receive death and make no sign, 
are part of the Regular routine. Be this as it may the Regulars 
redeemed all the precipitancy of the untrained, safeguarded the 
imperilled lines, even when the danger was as menacing to fly as 
to stay. These four well-placed Gatlings opened the way for a 
rush forward — that nettle danger which, when plucked, gave the 
rashly adventured mass safety. The plateau was an immense 
sieve of surprisingly concealed rifle-pits. In each rifle-pit a 
group of tenacious Spaniards clustered, showering the stretch 
of ground between them and the advancing host with clouds of 
bullets that fairly seemed to make the air black. But there was 
no halt, not the scintilla of a waver in the heavy column steady, 
devoted, lurching forward over the irregularities, gathering in 
line after line of the furious crevasses. But even when these 
were overcome, behind them uprose massive stockades fairly 
aflame with the density of the firing. These too the Regulars 
rushed upon, seized, conquered. 

Meanwhile, the ranks gathered about San Juan were waiting 
and — dying as they waited — for Chaffee's blows at El Caney 
were no longer a mere menace. In the very heat and fury of 
this triumphant furious advance this leonine fighter received 
wailing messages from his comrades in command, imploring 
him either to advance to the seizure of the blockading fort or 
retreat, as it was death to the other brigades to remain where 



4l8 SANTIAGO. 

they were. The message spread along the ranks and the men 
who had been out-daring dare-deviltry itself, took on a new im- 
petus. Inebriated by the opening volleys of Capron's guns, 
which by an inspiration of the commander, so ranged them- 
selves that they poured a concentrated fire into the blockhouse 
battery, the piteously thinned ranks seemed to increase in 
prowess, as they diminished m numbers. Capron's guns sent 
their missiles through the line of blockhouses knocking whole 
panels from the flaming sides. The effect was to benumb the 
defenders of the still untaken rifle-pits and to dislodge the gunners, 
who had been scattering death from these stone bulwarks. But 
though shaken, dying and dislocated, the Spaniards still had 
new coverts ; no sooner had our lines routed one rank of 
defenders, than they swarmed as if reinforcements had arrived, 
in another. 

At this juncture the commander, Chaffee, received again the 
startling tidings that the real battle of the day was going on at 
San Juan and that unless reinforced the decimated ranks would be 
compelled to retire. It was not an absolute command to suspend 
the more than half-won victory, but it was one of those crises in 
action which tries the judgment and reveals the soldier. It Was 
the adjutant-general who came to bring this disheartening word. 
He was taken along the line, shown what had been accomplished 
and what remained to do ; the fate of the battle and the siege 
depended upon the outcome. The decision was left to Breck- 
enridge the Inspector-General, who was not in authority : " Vou 
must take the village," that ofificial replied without hesitation. 
And thirty minutes later the wall of death was in the hands of 
its assailants. 

In the wild hurtling on-rush. Colonel Haskell of the Seven- 
teenth Infantry had orders to support the Seventh Infantry, but 
his predicament put his men in the very maw of the engulfing 
fire. There is a sublime egotism in the bravery evoked in the 
crisis of battle, the naive belief that the point to be gained de- 
pends upon the individual's effort; it is the cumulative egotism 
of company, brigade, and divisions, that compels victory, when 
decisive results hang on the conduct of one man, whose example 



A VENGEFUL MAELSTROM. 419 

IS a contagion. It was in this spirit that this admirable com- 
mander pushed to the front -of the hne. The volleys from the 
Mausers withered everything above the uneven surface ; it 
seemed to the panting men, worn with the upward rush through 
the woody entanglements, that the barbed wire fences had been 
flung enmasse — sped with satanic velocity, to scrape the surface. 
Barely had Haskell stepped a pace forward to lead his battalion, 
when he reeled to the earth. Lieutenant Dickinson of the same 
regiment, turning impulsively to aid his chief, was struck in the 
arm but maintained his ministry. The men were taking such 
meager advantage as the irregularity of the ground afforded, to 
preserve their numbers for the death grapple, and did not see 
the fall of their chief. But Lieutenants Hardway and Roberts 
among them, saw the disaster and called for volunteers to lift 
and carry the commander to a place of safety. The call was 
barely uttered when a dozen voices responded. Five went out 
into the pitiless hail and three of these were riddled. Colonel 
Haskell was dragged out of the vengeful maelstrom ; he -was 
pierced with three severe wounds. His Lieutenant, Dickinson, 
paid for his devotion by another wound — which killed him. 

The assault led by Colonel Haskell was what might be called 
a tooth and nail conflict, for actually the men seemed to use 
their fists and feet as well as their guns. Haskell was a pa- 
triarch in appearance, with a long, white beard that floated back- 
ward, as he fled onward into the fire, the men of his command 
actually seeming to crowd upon each other to stop the flight of 
bullets that came toward the veteran chief. The Spaniards stood 
to their arms with a valorous constancy that revealed what they 
would be capable of in a better cause. Indeed, to the educated 
on-lookers who could not take part in the battle, they seemed 
indifferent to death, determined only to wrest revenge from the 
foemen despoiling them of their stronghold. Fifty historians 
would be required to narrate in detail the heroic episodes of the 
half mile of conflict, that resulted in the rout of the masters of 
this fortified Golgotha, for the entire plateau was a place of death 
deliberately planned and valiantly defended. 

The first guns heard from our ranks at El Caney — the battery 



420 SANTIAGO. 

of Captain Hamilton, were equal to a reinforcement of a division 
of men — for it is one of the phenomena of the battlefield, that 
the soldier feels security, invincibility in fact, as the roar of his 
own guns breaks out behind him. For reasons never very 
clearly set forth, a movement of considerable concentration was 
ordered within range of the enemy's guns. That is, the line of 
battle which is usually formed outside of the enemy's fire, was 
carried on at El Caney and to the south and eastward in the 
agony and stress of the fight. The resultant slaughter was in 
the very nature of such heedlessness, lamentable. One regi- 
ment, the Thirteenth Infantry lost thirty per cent, of its number, 
the officers suffering out of proportion to the ranks. Nearly 
every man bearing the insignia of rank was either killed or 
wounded. It would be impossible to render more eulogistic 
testimony to men pursuing war, than the plain tale of what the 
right of the army withstood. Had the Spaniards known the 
havoc they had wrought, by a very slight reinforcement they 
might have compelled a retrograde all along that part of the 
line. Indeed had the Spaniards been of the fiber of the attack- 
ing forces, the right wing of the army must have been dispersed. 
Nor was this an advance, a conquest of territory to assuage the 
ravages wrought on the maltreated remnant. The dead lay 
where they fell ; the wounded encumbered the open spaces, or 
if by chance they were able to drag their mangled bodies under 
shelter, the prying eyes of the guerillas searched them out 
and riddled the torn bodies with volleys of Mauser missiles. 

But in this most trying of war's vicissitudes, no one saw a sign 
of wavering, a movement in retreat, by the able bodied. The 
work of concentration under fire went on, in the crucial points 
of the battle, from July 1st to July 3d, nor after the continuous 
slaughter of hours, was it found achieved on the noon of that 
day. In almost humorous keeping with the imprevoyance of 
the march, the provision of materials, food and what not, a bal- 
loon with unwieldly impedimenta was riddled by shrapnel and 
left to block the main artery of passage to the men under fire. 
The Regulars who marched in such order as the narrow way 
admitted, moved into line under fire and died in groups, were 



THE OASIS OP EL POZO. 



421 



entirely unprovided with surgeons. The surgeon of the Seven 
teenth Regiment, Major Ebert, was so exhausted by the con- 
tinuous calls upon him that he fainted in the middle of an 
operation and was revived by a Boston journalist, who by 
chance had enough cold water to bathe the fevered victim. It 
was the authenticated testimony of those at hand, studying the 
episodes and phenomena of the manoeuvres, that twenty-five 
per cent, of the wounded who died were lost by the lack of the 
most ordinary medical aid provided for the battle line. Men 
badly wounded, too much hurt to move without aid, gasped and 
groaned two days, where they fell, before hospital assistance 
reached them. No commander can see a whole battlefield, but 
any commander can foresee and so order in advance that every 
man and appliance needed in every conceivable emergency shall 
be within reach, or as nearly within reach as human prevision 
can bring about. Most of the errors and shortcomings, how- 
ever, were ascribable to causes far from culpable. It was to be 
on the line of fire, under the storm of shell, that the officers 
overlooked preliminaries. To illustrate. General Ludlow, the 
head of the engineers, so soon as the firing began, flew to the 
front to take active command, instead of remaining to supervise 
the mechanical details of his corps. 

Preliminary to the decisive operations of El Caney and San 
Juan, something of the work incumbent on a prudent army 
officer can be understood by a glimpse at some of the dangerous 
routine, involved in a rational advance over ground whose pos- 
sibilities for defence are unknown to the invader. In fact, to 
fully comprehend the endless and inherent obstacles meant by a 
war of invasion, it is essential to glance for a moment at au- 
dacities as thrilling in their way, though less inluridated by re- 
port, than the charge or bayonet grapple. General Lawton's 
division with headquarters at a dreamy little oasis in the wilder- 
ness of chapparal and cacti. El Pozo, five miles from Santiago, 
was from the 29th of June until the 3d of July a place of peril. 
No one knew what was immediately beyond, no one knew 
whether a path would take cavalry, artillery or infantry in a 
single step into the range of the enemy's missiles, no one knew 



422 SANTIAGO. 

whether the enemy was swainiiiig in masked battalions, or 
lurked in the convenient forks of the trees to slaughter the un- 
suspecting skirmishers. Here again, the deplorable inefficiency, 
shortcomings or unwillingness, or as our soldiery expressed it 
" dog cussedness " of the Cuban " patriots " manifested itself to 
u degree that made it difficult to keep the volunteers, at least, 
from falling upon the worthless ingrates, for whom the republic 
had declared war. They refused to do or dare a single step be- 
yond the protecting bayonets of the Federal soldiers, though 
they had beguiled the commanding general into a belief that 
they knew every step of the way, and were holding back from 
attacking the " cowardly Spaniards," by the desire of showing 
thei/ " generous allies ' the difficulties which the patriot army had 
been compelled to face in the struggle for " Cuba Libre." Hence, 
to rr.6ve forward over the ground prepared by the Spaniards for 
the destruction of whatever approached, after reaching certain dis- 
tances, skirmishing squadrons of topographical engineers were 
Bent out, and these modest, not to say obscure missions, per- 
formed vitally important functions so far as they were called into 
operation. Unhappily, they were not employed to the extent 
prescribed by military ordinances, hence the difficulties which 
afterward beset what is called the " turning movement," to the 
north and east of Santiago. 

At six o'clock in the morning of June 29th, Lieutenant Guy 
Smith of the topographical engineers was directed to push out 
from El Pozo toward Santiago, and map every rood of the way, 
that the commanders might comprehend to an inch almost, the 
diversities of the terrain over which the charging troops were 
obliged to pass. He was given a company of the Seventh Reg- 
ulars, under command of Lieutenant Durfee, and these fifty men 
and sixty Cubans set out on what would be called a forlorn hope, 
under ordinary circumstances. A rivulet large under the rains, 
but dry when the sun shone, the Rio Seco, formed the starting 
point or rather the boundary, where the United States troops 
patrolled. The educated topographers set their instruments at 
work, every instant expecting volleys from the trees above, from 
the dense clusters of chapparal or from the thousand and one 



MAPPING THE WAY. 



425 



natural hiding-places that an enemy, master of the country, 
would be apt to know, and the stranger could only find out by 
murderous experience. Hour after hour this breathless band 
crawled at much less than a snail's pace, for each man was 
forced to remain on the alert, his gun at his shoulder ready to 
avenge the death of the surveyors, immolated as it were on the 
altar of monotonous and inglorious duty. 

For, fafitastically enough, to die in the scientific service of 
war seems to bring none of the acclaim, we so .readily yield to 
the victim who falls in the charge, or in line of battle. A char- 
acteristic suggestion of Spanish inconsequence was found at a 
country residence, magnificent but deserted, the estate of an 
affluent merchant, sacked and gutted by the energetic Maceo. 
The place had been turned into a blockhouse ideally adapted to 
an ambuscade', had the Spaniards meant a " last ditch " war. 
But it was now a ruin. On the walls, incredible to say was 
found a crayon sketch of the entire chain of blockhouses and 
earthworks barring the road to Santiago. From this extraordi- 
nary carelessness the topographers were enabled to lay before 
the invading commander a fairly lucid plan of the circumvallat- 
ing defences ; though of course the natural obstacles of bush 
and brake, ridge and deep, were not shown. 

The little group of topographers had marched upon a plateau 
hardly more than three miles from the coveted city of Santiago. 
It was the first glimpse that any considerable body of the 
invaders had caught of the walls, and a cry of delight broke 
impulsively from the men, for even the streets, the houses, the 
time-worn tiles, the grey minarets, the romantic suggestion o( 
an older world, dropped into the fanciful vendure of the new, 
before the ravished eyes acquainted only with our monotonous 
blocks, or our meager northern foliage. The ravages from the 
civil strife of Cubanos against Spaniards, were discernible in 
the broken crenelations of the walls, dismantled churches, a gen- 
eral decay wrought by the wrath of man, and not the ele- 
ments. The city, indeed, spread out like a vast, chessboard, 
slanting downward from the Sierra Maestra, to the pellucid waters 
of the lovely bay. Brown ploughed fields, once affluent in 
24 



426 SANTIAGO. 

coffee crops ; vestiges of sugar patches and the thrift of a 
servile race of planters could be seen afar off, checkering the 
sloping plateau, in dreamlike quiet, as if war had never been 
heard of. Between the surveyors and the ominous outlines of 
blockhouses, rifle pits and defensive embankments, spread a vast 
gulf of what seemed stagnant water, but what was in reality 
the lush density of green, growing in murky swamps. This re- 
vealed one of the difficulties that the advancing lemons would 
have to meet, when the final charge came. The Cubans called 
the place a jungle, and jungle it certainly was, for in the attempt 
to penetrate it, crawling and slimy and fearful things were 
startled in repulsive masses ; vultures fled shrieking upward ; 
all of the uncanny forms of nature seemed to have assembled 
in this sinister bulwark, a thousandfold more ominous than all 
the preparations of the Spaniards to torment the marching men. 

In obedience to his consign, to make himself master of every 
possibility of advance, Lieutenant Smith pushed from end to 
end of the sweltering wastes and morasses, to mark the most 
available points of entrance. After hours of experimenting 
and exhaustive labor, dim woody ways, dark almost as caverns, 
were found here and there, where by agility and indifference to 
muck to the knees, it were possible to push on. It was not 
until after the Santiago blockhouses had been won by columns 
coming in from other than this direction, that the adventurous 
group found how far they had really advanced, further than any 
skirmishers that had come out on what is called the " Camino 
Real " — the state road, — not two miles from the heart of San- 
tiago itself. Here the Spanish soldiers could be seen loitering, 
drilling, occupied in fact in all the routine of barracks. Groups 
came wandering from the town, and some of them walked 
squarely into the Yankee ambuscade, never dreaming that any 
of Shafter's men would be so adventurous as to come within 
half rifle shot of 10,000 guns, ready to sweep the ground as 
clean as a lawn mower would. 

Mangoes were growing in many of the openings, and our ad- 
venturous group had barely settled itself for observation, when 
little bands of women and children wandered suddenly from be- 



UNWILLING WITNESSES. 42/ 

hind the walls or points of concealment, and began to fill their 
baskets with these, about the only food left to the poorer inhab- 
itants. The Cuban contingent watched them with ferocious in- 
tentness, until these unwary seekers were within reach and then 
pounced on them, stifling their screams to prevent the alarm to 
the soldiery, but a few yards away. Among the food- seekers 
two or three lusty youths were seized and taken back to head- 
quarters, for such information as they might be able to give the 
staff. One point of information gained from these unwilling 
witnesses, though they professed ardent sympathy for " Cuba 
Libre " was that, General Vara del Rey who had inflicted con- 
dign severities on the Cuban ranks in various encounters, had 
been compelled, even when marching at the head of his Span- 
ish column, to disguise himself in woman's apparel, in order to 
escape the sworn vengeance of the rebel guerillas. For a price 
had been placed upon his head, and the poor man was hardly 
sure that his own ranks might not take advantage of the ;^io,(X)0, 
to sacrifice him to guerilla vengeance. The topographers 
counted on passing the night in this place of peril, but the 
heavens ordered it otherwise, for a downpour of rain began at 
the very moment an audacious advance was planned to sketch 
the altitude of the fortifications. This rain was so continuous 
that further attempts were impossible, and in the darkness of 
night the march back may be imagined ; the condition of the 
men subjected to the sticky soil and the hardships of the forest. 
As there are few things done by man, that seem to interest 
men so profoundly as the meeting of ranks in battle, so there 
are very few things under the contact of life against life so diffi 
cult to reproduce exactly as the phenomena of actual conflict. 
This ought to be readily understood by every reader of war 
history; no one eye can see more than the swift happenings 
directly under a circum.scribed line of vision ; no man is quick 
enough to impress instantly the meaning of the movements that 
end in the victory of one mass of the deroute of the other ; 
hence, the thirty-six hours of really titanic wrestling which 
Shafter's army underwent, forms almost as many absorbing 
episodes as there were minutes in that agonizing interval, for 



428 SANTIAGO. 

agonizing it certainly was, to every man within the sphere of 
the Spanish guns ; not only within the sphere but far outside of 
it, for as has been said, death lurked in the most unexpected 
places. The Red Cross Samaritan took the wounded, no mat- 
ter how far from the line of fire, never sure that the tree above 
him or the thicket beside him did not conceal an enemy secure 
in the density of the tropical undergrowth. 

In nearly every one of the thousands of newspapers published 
throughout the United States, the participants and victims of 
the Santiago campaign contributed personal observation of the 
battle ; the combined testimonies, if ever collated, would give 
definite account of every instant of time from the moment the 
armada left Tampa, until the flag of the republic was flung out 
over the civic palace of Santiago. The abundance of testi- 
mony, while a reassurance to the historian, is at the same time 
an embarrassment, for many of the individual testimonies cover 
identical hours, minutes even, and hence, make a choice diffi- 
cult. But it is to be said for the first time in war, that the men 
who fought it have been its most striking historians ; every 
regiment possessed its Xenophon, and it will be difficult to per- 
petuate such errors for example, as defaced the allied battles in 
Spain as for sixty years disfigured — even the disaster of Water- 
loo. Let the reader, curious to make himself an image of the 
man in action, compare the vigorous sketch of Captain John 
Bigelow of the Tenth Cavalry, with the reports of Generals Kent, 
Lawton and Breckenridge, covering in general the same episode : 

♦' Our Tenth Cavalry was encamped over to the left of El 
Caney and we had pickets thrown out toward Santiago. We 
€ould see the fighting over toward El Caney, through our 
glasses. We could hear the noise of the battle and could see 
our men emerging from the brush and advancing to attack the 
Spanish position. We watched the fight for .some time, and 
then came the order to lay aside everything except arms and 
ammunition. Of course we knew what that meant. We piled 
our knapsacks and other accoutrements together, and I detailed 
a couple of men to guard them. We had to guard our things, 
not from the Spaniards, but from the Cubans. 



AN INSPIRATION. 429 

" Soon after this, bullets began to come our way. It was the 
most mysterious thing imaginable. We could see them strike 
around us and hear them singing through the air, but we 
couldn't tell where they came from. We knew the general 
direction, but no amount of looking in that direction disclosed 
any of the enemy. It is a good deal of a nervous strain to be 
ordered to stay still while the bullets are skipping around you. 
Occasionally a leaf cut off by a bullet would come floating 
gracefully down to us, in an easy, pleasant way that made us 
shiver. We got tired of lying still and doing nothing while 
under fire, and as there was no superior officer around I con- 
cluded every command would have to shift for itself; I started 
my troop forward (we were dismounted) to see if we could get 
up to the battle line and take some active part in the affair. 
We pushed on until we got near the edge of the bushes, and we 
found our battle line retreating. The retreat of the battle line 
seemed to enrage and arouse our men, for suddenly all started 
forward simultaneously over a line a half mile long. I heard no 
order, and there could have been no order given along that line. 
It was one of those inspirations which sometimes moves a large 
body of men. Out they swept from the bushes into the open 
space, our men with the rest. I saw no general officers. It 
was every man for himself, and all for the enemy. There was 
no regular line nor formation. It was a straggling mass fifty 
yards deep running across the open and firing over each others' 
heads at the hill. We could see the dust fly where the bullets 
struck on the Spanish defences. 

" We were about half way up the hill, and I was just looking 
over the mass of men advancing up the steep, when I suddenly 
felt as if my left leg had been struck by a cannon ball, and as 
though my little finger were in a machine that was grinding it 
to pulp. It didn't take me long to find that I was wounded. 
It seemed to me that I must be horribly wounded. I was 
afraid to look at that leg for fear it was entirely shot off. I 
called one of my men who cut my trousers open and found that 
the wound which had seemed so serious to me, was only a flesh 
wound through the calf of the leg. One bullet passed through 



43° SANTIAGO. 

my left little finger. A bullet ploughed a groove in my left 
shoulder. The one which went through my left thigh I did not 
feel at all, and did not know it had struck me until some time 
afterward. The Spanish sharpshooters were in the trees with 
smokeless powder, and they stayed up in the dense foliage of 
the treetops, while our men marched right under them. Under 
these conditions, we did not know of their presence, and could 
not distinguish their firing from that of our own men. They 
had unchecked opportunity to pick off the officers, and the\' 
improved it well. About twice as many officers were killed, as 
are usually killed in proportion to the relative number of officers 
and men." 

The history of the operations before Santiago, however, 
would be a bare odronicle of cold official facts, without color, 
were the contributions made by the rank and file omitted. 
The human side of the battle was of course seen by the plain, 
private soldier, who, while nominally irresponsible, as a matter 
of fact has the crucial responsibility. For it is idle to say that 
the four or six officials, performing perfunctory duties, can 
move or in any sense change the volition of a hundred men. As 
a matter of fact, all battles are fought by the men in the ranks. 
But it so happens that the testimony of this handiwork was 
never so clear and striking, as in the astonishing conflicts at 
Santiago, Tennyson says in " In Memoriam " : " They speak 
their feeling as it is, and tell the fulness of their pain." 

What for example could be more elucidative of the mingled 
confusion and intrepid purpose of a body of men, than the 
adventure of Color-Sergeant Andrews of Troop B in the Third 
Cavalry. He was tearing up the hill at San Juan with the 
impetuosity of a boy, although he has been in the service eigh, 
teen years, and in the climb from the ditch while holding the 
colors tenaciously, he was knocked over repeatedly. He clung 
to his precious charge. For a moment in the melee, covered by 
the wounded, and helplessly entangled in the ditch, he called 
out to his lieutenant to take the flag, but the roar of the battle 
drowned his voice and, unable to rise, he thrust the standard 
upward. " When I could get my head out I sat up, and I 



"I GUESS I'm boss.' 



431 



could see the line of battle for a mile. There are no words in 
any language, that I know, to tell what the fellows were doing, 
f he bullets came like the swash of water against the side of the 
ship, as I heard it many a night sailing from Tampa. The 
nippers would not cut the wires, and then you should see the 
men brace themselves with their guns and jump upon them and 
push them over. Sergeant Mulhearn grabbed the colors and 
planted them on the highest spot on the top of the hill. Fully 
200 shots were fired at the banner and it was ridled almost to a 
rag. My clothes were cut into ribbons, and I got to within 300 
yards of the main body of Spaniards, just as our fellows were 
capturing a regimental flag with the letter K on it. About that 
time, Colonel Roosevelt and Major Westervelt of the Rough 
Riders came up and I shouted to them to lie down or they 
would be shot. But they wouldn't. Major Westervelt was 
shot in the neck, and the fellows that went to take him out 
when they came back said, that as soon as he was bandaged he 
began to puff his pipe. Then when he found out he was not 
seriously hurt, he insisted on returning to the line, but the 
surgeon objected. He felt himself all over and remarked : 
* Well, I guess I'm boss, and I'm going.' He had barely got 
to the line of fire, when he was shot again and this time knocked 
out." 

Valiant men, who never dreamed of throwing the sheaves of 
their modest glory in the wallet of time for remembrance, wrote 
private letters, which proud kinsfolk published for the comfort 
of others — for the emulation of future heroes. In the sub- 
joined, the attentive reader will observe how the writer verifies 
other narratives, and )^et wrote only to transcribe his feelings 
and the scene, to those he loved. His kinsfolk had no idea 
that the official reports would identify the officer — but there 
were no confusing number of shoulder-straps in the first en- 
trance to San Juan. 

" We have been in Cuba now for twenty days. The other 
day, as we were changing position from the left to the right of 
the line, some soldier in the trenches called out : ' Have you 
fellows just got in?' A man in my company called back; 



433 SANTIAGO. 

' H — 1, no ; we've been here always.' And indeed, it seems as 
if we had been here for years, so many, many hot miles have 
we marched ; so many wet nights have we slept on the bosom 
of Mother Earth We were landed without transportation, and 
everything we have is what we carry. I have not even had a 
blanket. We sleep in our clothing and wallow in the mud. 
We live on hard tack, bacon and coffee. For nearly two weeks 
we have been daily and nightly under fire, except when a flag 
of truce is up. The great event, so far as I am con- 
cerned, was the fight of July ist. We were aroused at three 
in the morning and put in march at the first peep of dawn, 
over a road which we had built the day before. W^e waded 
through a river, and then were halted, while on our left a 
battery of artillery opened fire on the enemy, who was shell- 
ing our balloon. We were under the balloon, and you may 
easily appreciate the interest we took in the proceedings. 
Shell and shrapnel shrieked about us, the angry buzz and 
vicious bursting of the shells seeming to be on every side. A 
piece of shell tore through a man's thigh. The noise was terri- 
fying, the effect of shrapnel being dreadful when it hits. For- 
tunately, it does not hit often. 

"Our battery silenced the fire of the enemy, and we pushed 
on forward. Another river was waded, but it was only a little 
more than knee deep. On its further bank whistled the enemy's 
i)ullets. The men crouched down and rushed from cover to 
cover. We turned to the left ; thicker and faster flew the bul- 
lets, which tore seams in the hot summer air, all about us, above 
us, on our right and left, and at our feet. A part of the com- 
pany ahead of mine balked upon an open space. I drove them 
on, and my own company followed me. The regiment was 
soon huddled together in a bend of a river, surrounded by brush 
and trees. A few moments and the order came for Captain 
Turner's company to move forward ; another moment and Cap- 
tain Kennon followed him. Out into an open, grassy field, 
where the hum of insects was replaced by the venomous ' zipp ' 
of the deadly bullet. ' Not to cross the river.' Such was the 
order. Zipp, zipp, zipp came the bullets. The air was full of 



OUT INTO THE OPEN. 433 

chem. What to do ? Nothing but stay there and be hit. Two 
more companies came up, and all fell back but mine. But I 
was ordered to join on the left of these, so I ordered my com- 
pany back. ' I'm struck,' called out a man. I hastened to him. 
His arm was bored through, and the rich arterial blood was 
spouting his life away. I called a man to help me, and while 
the bullets fell like rain about us we put a tourniquet on his 
arm. The bullet had entered his side. Poor fellow ! The 
blood was stanched there, and we helped him — carried him, 
.ather — to a place where he would be sheltered from sun and 
bullets. 

" But our line had gone back. We took him with us, the 
bullets around us seeming almost like a solid wall of lead and 
brass, for the brutes were using brass-covered bullets. There is 
the colonel. ' Colonel, what orders ? ' ' Move forward,' and 
forward again we went, the colonel going with us. He crossed 
the river, I after him, my company following. Here we 
breathed, for we were under the shelter of the bank. I placed 
my men in a hollow. The colonel sent my second lieutenant 
back with orders for the other companies to join us. The poor 
boy was shot through the heart after giving the order to two 
companies. I caught my breath and plunged again into the 
storm to see where we were, where the enemy was, what we 
were to do. On either hand were Spanish works, the one td 
the left being Fort San Juan. It sat on a high, steep hill, witk 
a wide, flat, grassy plain in front, and r barbed-wire fence for us 
to climb. Oh, that fence ! Many and many a fine fellow failed 
to cross it. There, dear Sandy Wetherill, the last of the ' Old 
Sixth ' left to us, was killed, a bullet going through his fore- 
head. 

" A line was forming in the field. I went back and brought 
out the company, forming on the right of the line. There was 
the rattle of war the loudest. The crack of our rifles and those 
of the enemy, the whizz of the bullet, the shouting of officers, 
the groans of the wounded, the sound of the light artillery, the 
bursting of shells. 

" We began to go forward. I got in front of the company 



434 SANTIAGO. 

and called, ' Come on, boys,' and the brave fellows went forward 
on a run, across the field and up the spur of the hill on which 
was the fort. Here we found ourselves ahead of the rest. A 
Gatling gun opened on the enemy with a noisy rattle, and 
with deadly effect. The Spaniards were firing from trenches, 
we from the open, but the storm of bullets from tlie machine 
gun seemed to shake them. I saw several run. I sent a man 
down to the regiments who were forming at the foot of the hill 
to tell them that if they moved forward at once the place was 
ours and begged them to advance. Then with my company I 
pushed on, and was the first officer to reach the summit. A 
few Spaniards were still there, the rest were retreatiiig,__J_dL^ 
rected the arms to be taken from the wounded and dead Span- 
iards, and fire to be opened on the retreating enemy. They 
started to make a stand, but the others now coming up the hill, 
and lining up on either side, poured volley after volley into 
them and they sought safety in precipitate flight. An attempt 
was made later to retake it, but was repulsed. In the exening 
we were ordered to the left, and intrenched our position. 

" Eleven officers out of thirty-one, 1 20 men out of about 450, 
killed and wounded, that is the record of the Sixth on the ist 
of July. Every day my company has been under fire, both ol 
artillery and infantry. It was worth a man's life to stand erect, 
A bullet came within less than six inches of my head as I was 
taking my breakfast. It lodged in a tree two feet away." 

Even though the hospital and medical provisions were pain- 
fully, criminally stinted, the wounded Spaniards, like the wounded 
soldiery of the republic, were tenderly cared for ; shared the 
meagre comforts of the invading ranks, both in the Red Cross 
refuges and the military hospitals. This humanity which was 
so natural, that it was unnoticed by our soldiers, evoked a praise 
from the foreigners that is hardly flattering to the European 
conduct of war. Captain Webster of the Norwegian military 
staff, bore this testimony : 

" One thing which specially pleased me was the magnanimity 
with which the United States hospital corps ministered to the 
viy^ounded Spaniards found on the battlefield. They were picked 



SHARING MEAGER COMFORTS. 435 

up and placed in the ambulance wagons and carried to the rear, 
where they received the very best medical attention. American 
surgeons on the battlefield would bandage the wound of a 
Spanish soldier to stop the flow of blood till the ambulance 
wagon arrived. The hospital service of the American army 
is worthy of the highest commendation. 

" I was told by American officers that the Cubans killed 
wounded Spaniards with their machetes, but this barbarous 
practice was stopped by the officers and men of the United 
States army. 

'• The Cubans could not be seen when an engagement opened. 
They know nothing about scientific warfare. The men are not 
trained ; they fight as an organized mob. The Cubans rendered 
very httle service to the invading army, except as guides." 

A startled Briton, reporting the campaign for the war ofifice in 
London, witnessed this characteristic trait : " In the whirlwind 
crisis of the San Juan attack, an ofificer leading Regulars was 
struck, at short range, in the cheek. The Mauser bullet made 
a small, clean hole, and came out through the side of its vic- 
tim's nose. He did not know he was hurt until another officer, 
seeing his face bleeding, jokingly said : ' Why man, you're 
wounded, mortally wounded — look at the blood. I don't know 
but you're killed already — look at the hole in your nose. 
You've got four nostrils, man, if you don't get plugged up, 
you'll be going about breathing like a porpoise.' With that he 
led his comrade off" to the hospital, to convince him that he was 
disabled by holding a mirror to his face." 

With the third of the officers slain and twelve per cent, of 
each regiment incapable of moving, wounded or dead, a convic- 
tion suddenly settled upon the minds of the masses, after thirty- 
six hours of titantic wrestling, that there was neither victory in 
further effort nor security in retreat ; exactly the frame of mind 
that precedes the dissolution of organized armies. In this junc- 
ture, many of the commanders on the night of July the first, 
urged General Wheeler to withdraw. They saw nothing but 
disaster in remaining where they were, and extinction if they 
attempted to advance. But Wheeler had been in dilemmas of 



43^ lANTIAftO. 

a more trying sort in the Civil War. He had been surrounded 
by the bayonets of the Federals, and many a time had cut his 
way through massed ranks which were quite as formidable as 
the barbed wire bulwarks, stone walls and clay defences of the 
Spaniards. 

The crafty old Confederate knowing the effect of a combined 
remonstrance to a distant commander (Shafter was at the time 
ill on a transport) wrote to his chief, saying : " I presume the 
same influences are being brought to bear on you that are 
working with me. But it will not do. American prestige 
would suffer irretrievably if we give up an inch ; we must stand 
firm." And yet at this very moment, when hope was extinct, 
when brawn and muscle were at their last exertion, when the 
most ardent were chilled by the empty belly and the parched 
throat, cumulative causes were at work to end the extraordinary 
situation. Cervera's fleet was quitting the harbor of Santiago. 

General Breckenridge, touching the conditions on the night 
of July 2d, in his report to the Secretary of War, departs thus 
widely from the tone of official literature : 

" Doubtless, through telegrams and otherwise, there have 
been sufficient indications of the intense strain in the whole 
military situation on the field of operations which led to the 
consultation at the El Pozo house the night of July 2d, and some 
of the general officers favored a retrograde movement during 
the day or two prior to our intrenchments taking shape and the 
armistice being agreed upon. . . . Probably it is now evi- 
dent to all that it was far better to stand steadfast, and perhaps 
quite possible to advance rather than retreat so near the Fourth 
of July, and certainly we have demonstrated our ability to hold 
our own." 

While the enemy's flag remains in sight, while the embra- 
sures spit fire, and death comes in torrents, no matter how much 
has been won, victory has not been gained And though we 
had crushed the volcanic outpouring of El Caney, the thunders 
at San Juan and the mangled lines struggling and crawling 
through the gullies, lingering by the streams, made it plain to 
the rushing ranks of reinforcements, that the decisive point had 



DEATH IN TORRENTS.- ^^~ 

not been won. San Juan embodied vaguely to the minds of 
the hurrying ranks the formidable personality of the Malakoff. 
One of the extraordinary incidents of the battle as it arranged 
itself now, was the transposition of columns in the dense thick 
ness of the undergrowth. The divisions of Kent and Summer 
crossed each other unseen, and when they emerged into the 
line of fire, they were found to be in exactly reversed positions 
This itself will give a reader uninformed in military technicali 
ties, a vivid idea of the maddening noise and confusion going 
on, within the eight miles of fire the battlefield comprised. For 
if two friendly bodies of men could pass each other, oblivious 
each of the presence of the other, how easy would it have been 
for an enterprising foe to place a force in a position to destroy 
legions moving at such disadvantage. 

It was late in the afternoon when the tide of battle became 
congested in front of what may be called the headquarters of 
the invading army at El Pozo. A battery of artillery which 
had painfully worked itself to this point of vantage, while by no 
means disconcerting the enemy, brought down upon the gather- 
ing masses of Kent, Summer, Lawton and Hawkins, the deadly 
fire of every Mauser in the enemy's blockhouses. Hawkins 
himself seemed to breathe the intoxication of joy under the or- 
deal. He rode at the head of his infantry brigade, across the 
plain and up the steep hillside commanded on three sides by 
fire, and pushed determinedly forward, absolutely unconscious 
that he was the best target of the thousands on the field. The 
infantry moved like a train of cars, with dismounted cavalry 
clustering by their side. It seemed as though they disdained 
to use the old-fashioned muskets, for they moved implacably 
forward, the brilliant colors of the flag accentuating the preci- 
sion of the line. Slight as the incident was, Hawkins' unosten- 
tatious tranquillity, as he took off his hat, with a sHght gesture 
of courteous command, stiffened the sinews of the marching 
men. And it would be almost within the line to say that they 
met with derision the black flight of bullets and the shrieking 
canister, as they bore onward with gaping ranks, to the citadel 
of the enemy's resistance. 



43S SANTIAGO. 

Ordinarily, in fact universally, by the concomitant testimc. <y 
of the European critics and monitors, this movement wa, a 
criminal impossibility. No soldier had ever been called Upon 
to walk up to unbroken walls, to face, tear away, break dowh 01 
in any way whatsoever, overcome thick networks of barbed 
wire, one strand of which suffices to stay the momentum of ten 
thousand herded cattle on the plains. Yet, under the fire of the 
Spanish embrasures, in the maelstrom of the Mausers, those 
who had the calmness to watch, could see bayonets twisting the 
wire, hatchets chipping them, or some stalwart fellow, with his 
gun bracing him, trampling the wire and holding it down for 
the others to pass over. " It is not war," exclaimed the Ger- 
man attache, " but it is magnificent. Men who can make such 
soldiers as that could never be conquered by all the armies of 
Europe." And over the entire eight miles, heroic insanity of 
this sort was seen during these two abysmal days. More in- 
comprehensible still to the foreigner, accustomed to the methodic 
warfare of the books, whether by an oversight or the instinct of 
the men themselves, the bayonets were not fixed on the guns. 
Which either meant that our soldiery, as by an interpenetrat- 
ing, common consent, had determined to give the Spaniards no 
time tq fight body to body, or that the enterprise seemed so 
hopeless that none expected to reach that last stage of despera- 
tion, when men meet, bayonet to bayonet, a thing very rarely 
seen in war. 

But the battle was fought by the colonels, majors and the 
c.iptains : the division commanders, the brigade commanders, 
had followed their orders in aligning their troops themselves 
saw the work that must be done and resolutely went at it. The 
darkness on that space of carnage fell as suddenly as the day- 
light came in the morning ; and while this herioc struggle had 
won the outward and almost invincible defences of Santiago, 
the la.st range of a despairing but undismayed army was still 
between the war-worn ranks and the city. 

Up to this point the soldiers felt that they had themselves 
taken the reins in their own hands, that they had done the 
fighting and whatever faults or mischances had resulted was 




UNIFORMS, UNITED STATES SERVICE. 



44C> SANTIAGO. 

largely of their own doing. It was their own eagerness to seize 
the embattled hnes in front, that deprived them of incalculable 
advantages of the Gatling guns painfully clambering toward 
them from the rear. A battery of these destructive machines 
at El Caney or San Juan would have saved half of the 1,500 
lives lost in the adventure. In fact, by common consent, tlic 
capture of San Juan hill was ascribed to the extraordinary in- 
spirations of two captains of the Sixth United States Infantry, 
and in days to come when the daring of the march and siege 
arc discussed, the tale will take its place among the thrilling 
legends of military history. The Sixth lost 131 men killed and 
wounded, out of a total of 450 who came through the via dolo- 
rosa of El Pozo under the command of its colonel, Egbert. 
These 450 men launched in the dark, vaguely directed to cross 
the San Juan river and hold the foot of the hill, found them- 
selves as it were, isolated, that is to say, out of the reach of the 
staff guides and division commander. 

The hill uprose bristling with cactus and impregnable with 
the thickly set wires and traps prearranged for death. Up in 
the air, far above the Sixth, rose the ancient crenelated ruin 
turned into a fortress or blockhouse. The ascent from any side 
accessible to the regiment was by actual measurement forty-five 
degrees. The segment of the hill to be taken and held, about 
a third of a mile crescent. The river oozes furtively through 
an immense brake of jungle, wire, grass and all manner of cling- 
ing and obstructive growths. The water at no point fell be- 
low the middle of the men as they struggled through. Into 
this pit of gloom the Spaniards had prearranged a fire which 
was so well nourished, as the French would say, that hardly a 
leaf was spared on the taller growths, and it seems like an in- 
vention to say that a man of the 450 escaped from the down- 
pour of Mausers. It is no discredit to the battalion that they 
broke in every direction, not to seek cover but to avoid death 
in order that they might achieve the task set them. In this 
dispersion, the various companies were so dislocated that the 
men could not find their surroundings nor the officers their 
commands. In this blizzard of mingled death and confusion, 



WHAT TWO CAPTAINS Dir>. 44I 

Captain L. W. V. Kennan of Company I'>, and Captain Charlej 
Byrne of Company F, asked the colonel, in despair, what thej 
should do. The previous consign had been not to push be- 
yond the river until the proper supports came up on either 
flank, but to remain in the pit of death was to sacrifice the regi- 
ment uselessly, whereas by advancing, the range of the Span- 
iards might be disconcerted. 1 he two captains just mentioned 
gathered together fragments of many companies as they came 
to hand. With this dauntless band, Byrne made at the wire 
palisades, where the men were already mowed down in heaps. 
He seized a machete from the hand of a Cuban, slashed an 
opening in the wire and, amazing to say, almost in single file 
the band poured through and as anticipated were for a momen- 
tous pause sheltered from the plunging fire above. But a harder 
task still fronted them, for the uprise was so steep that the men 
were obliged to pull themselves up by the bushes. And it often 
happened that the shoulder of one man was the stepping-stone 
to another to retain his footway. But there was a surcease 
from the Mausers, for the bullets went far beyond the squirm- 
ing companies as they painfully toiled upward. At the top of 
the hill Byrne and Kennan gravely shook hands in commem- 
oration of the feat done, and the work to do. On this glori- 
ously won point of vantage they found the brilliant and brave 
Lieutenant Ord, who had paid for his temerity in seeking the 
spot, by his life. With straggling fragments of the Sixteenth 
and Twenty- fourth he had, although a staff officer, taken it upon 
him to silence the fort that was dealing such destruction, and in 
the charge he was riddled by the bullets of a revolver in the 
hands of a wounded Spaniard. 

Byrne and Kennan, without a pause, concentrated the frag- 
ments of the companies that had clambered up the hill, and by 
what seemed a miracle of pure impudence charged upon the 
blockhouse, routed its defenders and ran up the flag. 

But the deeds of the day were scattered over so many points 
unwitnessed by staff officers and the agencies usually accounted 
on to make reports, that these extraordinary exhibitions of in- 
dividual courage and sagacity found no mention in the official 
25 



442 SANTIAGO. 

reports, Yet this passage was to the general battle, what Hob^ 
son's feat was to the destruction of Cervera. 

A witness of the ^idventure relates that the two captains moved 
entirely on their own responsibility, and that during the upward 
climb they became separated and as if by a mutual instinct on 
reaching the crest ordered the same manoeuvres. Captain Ken- 
nan made his men lie down and ordered them not to shoot at 
anything but men, and not to fire without orders. The men 
watched him eagerly, anticipating the word to advance. Very 
soon he ordered them forward. "The men's faces," Captain 
Kennan testifies, " were like the faces of schoolboys when they 
heard that they are to have an unexpected holiday." They 
rushed on eagerly, and found a road which fortunately saved 
them trom a good deal of slaughter which other companies met 
in crossing a barbed wire fence that borders the meadows here. 
They lined up at one point with some of the men of the Six- 
teenth Infantry, but left them again ; they passed on up the hill 
— not directly at the blockhouse, but in a flanking direction, 
which gave them an easier ascent and then turned at right 
angles to face the blockhouse. All the way up Captain Kennan 
led and encouraged his men ; but not one of them anywhere 
showed any disposition to waver. When the turn was made. 
Captain Kennan found himself and his company alone on the 
hill ; he had supposed that the whole regiment was coming up. 
He hesitated a moment, wondering if he must retrace his steps. 
For one company, reduced more than one-half by the scatter- 
ing in the woods and the falling of men before the Spanish fire, 
to take the fortification alone, would be impossible. The captain 
sent his junior ofificer down the hill with this message : '• The 
hill is ours if you'll come up; for God's sake come." Mean- 
while, he saw other men ascending, and pressed on. At the 
same time, the Gatling battery, under Captain Parker of the 
Thirteenth Infantry, poured a galling fire from below straight 
across the edge of the Spanish trenches into the defenders' faces. 
Kennan saw the Spanish leaving their blockhouse and getting 
into the trenches, which was a sign of panic. On he went with 
his men ; and now he saw the Spanish, who by this time were 



Story of the ants. 443 

menaced with the advance of other companies up the hill, aban- 
doning the trenches and flying down the back side of the hill 
toward Santiago. In another moment he and his men, now re- 
duced to about twenty, were leaping over the trenches, which 
they found full of dead and wounded. 

A British correspondent who had seen war in all the recent 
outbreaks in Europe, witnessed nothing so fierce for the time 
taken, or the sacrifices of life involved, than the advance on 
Santiago. He gives a few glimpses that th6 readers of military 
history will prize : 

" When afternoon came — I lost exact count of time — there 
was still a jumble of volleying over by Caney. But in front, 
our men were away out of sight behind a ridge far ahead. Be- 
yond, there arose a long, steepish ascent crowned by the block- 
house upon which the artillery had opened fire in the morning. 

" Suddenly, as we looked through our glasses, we saw a little 
black ant go scrambling quickly up this hill, and an inch or two. 
behind him a ragged line of other little ants, and then another 
line of ants at another part of the hill, and then another, until it 
seemed as if somebody had dug a stick into a great ants' nest 
down in the valley, and all the ants were scrambling away up 
hill. Then the volley firing began ten times more furiously 
than before ; from the right beyond the top of the ridge burst 
upon the ants a terrific fire of shells ; from the blockhouse in 
front of them machine guns sounded their continuous rattle. 
But the ants swept up the hill. They seemed to us to thin out 
as they went forward ; but they still went forward. It was in- 
credible, but it was grand. The boys were storming the hill. 
The military authorities were most surprised. They were not 
surprised at these splendid athletic daredevils of ours doing it. 
But that a military commander should have allowed a fortified 
and intrenched position to be assailed by an infantry charge up 
the side of a long, exposed hill, swept by a terrible artillery fire, 
frightened them not so much by its audacity as by its terrible 
cost in human life. 

"As they neared the top the different lines came ner^r to- 
gether. One moment they went a little more slowly ; then 



444 



SANTIAGO. 



they nearly stopped ; then they went on again fastci' tlian evef, 
and then all of us sitting there on the top of the battery cried 
with excitement. For the ants were scrambling all round the 
blockhouse on the ridge, and in a moment or two we saw them 
inside it. But then our hearts swelled up into our throats, for a 
fearful fire came from somewhere beyond the blockhouse and 
from somewhere to the right of it and somewhere to the left of 
it. i'hcn we saw the ants come scrambling down the hill again. 
They had taken a position which they had not the force to hold. 
But a moment or two and up they scrambled again, more of 
them, and more quickly than before, and up the other face of 
the hill to the left went other lines, and the ridge was taken, 
and the blockhouse was ours, and the trenches were full of dead 
Spaniards. 

" It was a grand achievement — for the soldiers who shared it 
— this storming of the hill leading up from the St. Juan River 
to the ridge before the main fort. We could tell so much at 
2,560 yards. But we also knew that it had cost them dear. 

" Later on, we knew only too well how heavy the cost was. 
As I was trying to make myself comfortable for the night in 
some meadow grass as wet with dew as if there had been a 
thunderstorm, I saw a man I knew in the Sixteenth, who had 
come back from the front on some errand. 

" • How's the Sixteenth ? ' I asked him. 

" ' Good, what's left of it,' he said ; * there's fifteen men left 
out of my company — fifteen out of a hundred.' 

" We have fought a great battle, but we have not taken Santi- 
ago yet." 

Indeed, without the guaranty of actual eyesight, the future 
student of war might suppose in the plain tale of Santiago he 
was reading an exaggeration of the memoirs of Napoleon's 
rough riders, Marbot or Nansouty. 

" It was the day after the big fight, and the road was busy 
both ways. From the front, the heavy, jolting, six-mule ammu- 
nition wagons were returning empty after dropping their boxes 
of cartridges at the firing line. 

" But not quite empty, for as they came nearer you saw that 



HUMAN AMMUNITION. 445 

awnings of big palm leaves were lightly spread from side to 
side. And then, when, with a ' Whee hooyah ! ' and a crack ol 
the long whip and a ' Git in thar, durn yer,' from the Texan 
teamster, the mules swung round from the road up the steep 
bank into the hospital field, you saw as the wagon tilted that 
under the palm leaves pale, bandaged men were lying. They 
groaned in agony as the heavy springless wagons rocked and 
jolted. 

" ' For God's sake kill mc out of this,' screamed a man as he 
clutched in agony at the palm leaves between him and the sun. 
It seemed awful that wounded men should be carried back in 
such fashion, but thenj as some one explained, ' Guess there's a 
considerable shortage of ambulance traction.' And then there 
was a certain grim appropriateness to the proceedings of yes- 
terday. 

" The men had been fired as ammunition against intrench- 
ments and positions that should have been taken by artillery. 
It was quite in keeping that tlie poor, battered, spent bullets 
should be carted back in the ammunition wagons. But besides 
the wagons there came along from the front, men borne on 
hand litters, some lying face downward, writhing at intervals in 
awful convulsions, others lying motionless on the flaf e^ their 
backs with their hats placed over their faces for shade. And 
there also came men, dozens of them afoot, painfully limpmg 
with one arm thrown over the shoulder of a comrade and the 
other arm helplessly dangling. 

" • How much further to the hospital ? ' they would despair- 
ingly ask. 

" • Only a quarter of a mile or so,' I would answer, and, with 
a smile of hope at the thought that after all they would be able 
to achieve the journey, they would hobble along. 

" But the ammunition wagons and the few ambulance wagons 
did not carry them all. For hobbling down the steep bank 
from the hospital, came bandaged men on foot. They sat down 
for awhile on the bank as far as they could from the jumble of 
mules and wagons in th.e lane, and then setting their faces to- 
ward Siboney they commenced to walk it. They were the men 



44^ SANTIAGO. 

whose injuries were too slight for wagon room to be given 
them. There was not enough wagon accommodation for the 
men whose wounds rendered them helplessly prostrate. So let 
the men who had mere arm and shoulder wounds, simple flesli 
wounds, or only one injured leg or foot, walk it. Siboney was 
only eight miles away. 

" True, it was a fearfully bad road, but then the plain fact was 
that there vvas not enough wagons for all, and it was better for 
these men to be at the base hospital, and better that they should 
make room at the division hospital, even if they had to make 
the journey on foot. There was one man on the road whose 
left foot was heavily bandaged and drawn up from the ground. 
He had provided himself with a sort of rough crutch made of 
the forked limb of a tree, which he had padded with a bundle 
of clothes. With the assistance of this and a short stick he was 
padding briskly along when I overtook him. 

" ' Where did they get you ? ' I asked him, 

" ' Oh, durn their skins,' he said in the cheerfulest way, turn- 
ing to me with a smile, ' they got me twice — a splinter of a 
shell in the foot, and a bullet through the calf of the same leg, 
when I was being carried back from the firing line.' 

" ' A sharpshooter ? ' 

" ' The fellow was up in a tree.' 

«' ' And you're walking back to Siboney. Wasn't there room 
for you to ride ? ' I expected an angry outburst of indignation 
in reply to this question. But I was mistaken. In a plain, 
matter-of-fact way he said : 

" ' Guess not. They wanted all the riding room for worse 
cases 'n mine. Thank God, my two wounds are both in the 
same leg, so I can walk quite good and spry. They told me 
I'd be better off down at the landing yonder, so I got these 
crutches and made a break.' 

" ' And how are you getting along ? ' I asked. 

'"Good and well,' he said as cheerfully as might be, 'jusc 
good and easy.' And with his one sound leg and his two 
sticks he went cheerfully padding along. 

" It was just the same with other walking, wounded men. 



"UP AGAINST IT. 



447 



They were all beautifully cheerful. And not merely cheerful. 
They were all absolutely unconscious that they were undergoing 
any unnecessary hardships or sufferings. They knew now that 
war was no picnic, and they were not complaining at the ab- 
sence of picnic fare. Some of them had lain out all the night, 
with the dew falling on them where the bullets had dropped 
them, before their turn came with the overworked field sur- 
geons. 

" ' There was only sixty doctors with the outfit,' they ex- 
plained, ' and, naturally, they couldn't tend everybody at once.' 

" That seemed to them a quite sufficient explanation. It did 
not occur to them that there ought to have been more doctors, 
more ambulances. Some of them seemed to have a faint glim- 
mering of a notion that there might perhaps have been fewer 
wounded ; but then that was so obvious to everybody. The 
conditions subsequent to the battle they accepted as the condi- 
tions proper and natural to the circumstances. The cheerful 
fellow with the improvised crutches was so filled with thankful- 
ness at the possession of his tree-branch that it never occurred 
to him that he had reason to complain of the absence of proper 
crutches. I happened by chance to know that packed away in 
the hold of one of the transports lying out in Siboney Bay there 
were cases full of crutches, and I was on the point of blurting 
out an indignant statement of the fact when I remembered that 
the knowledge would not make his walk easier. So I said 
nothing about it, 

" I had to make the journey to Siboney myself. There was 
nothing more than a desultory firing going on at the front, and 
I had telegrams to try and get away. So I passed a good many 
of the walking wounded, and heard a good many groans from 
palm-awninged wagons. The men were, all the same, bravely 
and uncomplainingly plodding along through the mud. As 
they themselves put it, they were ' up against it,' and that was 
all about it. 

<'And down at Siboney? Well, thank God, the hospital 
tents had been unloaded. They were short of cots, short of 
blankets, short of surgeons, short of supplies, short of nurses, 



448 SANTIAGO. 

short of everything. But, thank goodness, by squeezing and 
crowding and economizing space there was shelter for the men 
as they came in. And thank goodness, too, for the Red Cross 
Society." 

After the stifling fumes of battle smoke, the rush and hurry 
of charge and action, the heart of the commander-in-chief sank 
as he saw the sanguinary line of wounded dragging themselves 
past his quarters. But the killed and the wounded were not the 
only visible results of the week's marches and combats. Many 
were inanimate, or seemed so, from the heat, the water and the 
food. Shafter knew that if he could summon 5,000 able-bodied 
men out of the 16,000 on the rolls, he would be doing extremely 
well. Yet, he sent to General Toral, the Spanish Commander, 
a demand to give up the city, allowing him twenty-four hours, 
till 10 A. M. of July 4th, to comply. That time was extended 
from day to day, until on July 14th, General Toral agreed to sur- 
render, not only Santiago, but much of the surrounding coun- 
try, with the scattered garrisons. Meanwhile, siege guns were 
brought up, and General Shafter was to some extent relieved of 
the burden by the arrival of General-in-chief Miles, who set to 
work to push reinforcements to the sorely worn ranks. 

But at last, the tedious preliminaries were brought to an end. 
The chiefs of the Federal army, in the presence of the two lines, 
Spanish and Yankee, met a short distance from the intrench- 
ments, and the last solemnity was observed. On July 17th, fol- 
lowed by a regiment of the Regulars, Shafter and his staff were 
conducted -to the civic palace where the flag of the United States 
replaced the banner of Spain. There was little attempt at the 
spectacular, but the masses who witnessed the scene were im- 
pressed with the indifference of the Spaniards. For both the 
citizens and soldiers seemed relieved. The capitulation re- 
vealed to General Shafter the amazing luck that had attended 
our whole campaign, for the forces surrendered were almost 
double the number brought to the island from Tampa. Those 
who had wrought incessantly for weeks were rewarded with a 
spectacle such as we had not seen since the armies of Washing- 
ton and Rochambeau were drawn up at Yorktown — the filing 





GENERAL JOSE TORAL Y VEJ ASQUEZ. 



450 SANTIAGO. 

past of an army corps, under the laws of war. Our soldiery, in 
this intoxicating hour of triumph, confirmed all the traditions 
of chivalry we have been accustomed to associate with them ; 
they gave the Spaniards no cause to regret the giving up. 
Shafter himself like the s-cout soldier he had proven himself, re- 
fused to take the sword of the Spanish commander. In an 
hour after the flag of the republic swung out over the turrets 
of the municipal palace, the troops of the two armies were mob- 
ilized in the kindliest confraternity. 



1 




.^ri^^K:^ 



LIAOYANG. 

1904 A. D. 




£Y G. W. HOBBS, JR. 

HE Battle of Liaoyang, a bloody six days' strug- 
gle between the Russians and Japanese for 
possession of this city, has taken a place among 
the great battles of history. This contest and 
the Battle of the Shakhe River, following it, 
in which the Russians attempted in vain to 
turn the tide of defeat and retreat, were the 
culmination of the first land campaign of the 
Japanese-Russian War and marked the end of the series of con- 
flicts beginning with the successful crossing of the Yalu River 
by the Japanese, May i. The estimates of the number of men 
engaged at Liaoyang vary from 200,000 to 250,000 on each side 
so that in point of numbers it was the greatest battle of modern 
times, exceeding any of the struggles of the American Civil War, 
and having no peer since the famous Battle of Leipsic where 
Napoleon arrayed 130,000 men against the 300,000 of the Allies. 
In result the battle was less decisive than many other great 
battles of history. The object of the Japanese was to surround 
and crush the enemy. In this they failed, despite the fact that 
they won a wonderful victory. The Russian army was saved by 
a masterly retreat of more than sixty miles, through every foot 
of which was fought what was perhaps the world's greatest 
rear-guard struggle. That the final aim of the Japanese was not 
achieved was due to the limitations of human endurance. They 
outfought, and outgeneraled the enemy at every stage of the 
battle, but after forced marching of nearly 200 miles, and con- 
tinuous fighting for six days, the flanking army at the moment 
when its blow might have been delivered, was compelled to desist 
from physical exhaustion. 

453 



yyiJ^^^iAo^^ 



454 LIAOYANG. 

Something of events leading up to the battle must be told to 
make the event, and its significance intelligible. The Japanese- 
Russian War became a fact February 6, 1904. Two days later 
the vanguard of the Japanese army of invasion landed at Che- 
mulpo and Chenampo, Korea. Russian occupation of the Shan- 
tung peninsula and her activity in Manchuria along the Korean 
border had been prime causes of disagreement between the two 
governments and Manchuria from the Korean border northward 
was obviously to be the battleground. The Japanese marched 
the length of Korea, from Seoul^ its capital, 600 miles to the 
Yalu and there, defeated the Russians, crossed the river mto the 
enemy's country and thus opened the actual land campaign. 
This original army was commanded by General Kuroki, who in 
the early days of the struggle and in every important action since 
has proved himself the greatest of Japan's commanders. After 
the victory of the Yalu Kuroki advanced into Manchuria to 
Fengwangcheng, to await further development of the campaign. 
To the south, General Oku, with the second army of invasion 
landed at Pitsewo, on May 5, and on May 26 defeated the Rus- 
sians at Kinchow and gained control of the neck of land there, 
so that his army was in position to prevent a southward advance 
of the Russians toward Port Arthur, against which meantime, 
both a naval and land campaign was being waged. General Oku's 
second battle was fought at Manshan Hill, which was taken in 
a desperate bayonet charge. On June 15, General Oku fought a 
battle at Telissu, defeating General Stakelberg and an expedition 
that had been sent southward for the relief of Port Arthur. This 
was the final preliminary battle before the development of the 
actual campaign which culminated at Liaoyang. The Third 
Japanese army under General Nodzu, had meanwhile landed at 
Takushan, midway from Pitsewo to the mouth of the Yalu, and 
had driven the Russians from an advanced position at Siuyen. 
Thus three Japanese armies were ready to converge on the Rus- 
sians whose army was in three great divisions, at Tashichow, 
Kaiping and Haicheng, admirably disposed to meet advances by 
all of the Japanese forces. They were aided, too, by the nature 
of the country, and at each point defended mountain passes of 




BATTLE OF LIAO-YANG. 



455 



456 LIAOYANG. 

tremendous natural strength. In the latter part of June after 
desperate fighting General Kuroki captured Motien Pass, at the 
summit of the watershed that divides the Yalu and Liao Valleys, 
and General Nodzu took Fenchin Pass, giving him command of 
the roads to Kaichow and Haicheng. The Russians made a 
desperate attempt June 16-17 to retake Motien Pass but were 
defeated. Then began the Japanese advance in earnest. They 
captured in succession Tashichow, Kaiping and Haicheng, and 
during July and August in achieving these triumphs succeeded in 
closing the three original armies into one vast command for the 
advance which brought the Russians to bay at Liaoyang. 

The united Russian army was commanded by General Kuro- 
patkin, a soldier who had learned war in the Crimea, the idol of 
his nation and a general in whom the Tsar and his councillors 
placed the greatest confidence. General Kuropatkin had ex- 
plained successive defeats and retreats on the score of superior 
numbers of the Japanese. The intimation was given that once 
Liaoyang was reached a stand would be made and a decisive 
battle would follow. The city itself dates from time immemorial. 
It was the headquarters of the Manchu dynasty for centuries 
before these robber clans overran China and made Pekin their 
capital. Tombs of Manchu Emperors, old beyond grasp of the 
imagination, still stand near the ancient walled city, objects of 
awe and worship throughout China. Liaoyang is on the south 
bank of the Taitse River, and is a station on the railroad con- 
necting Harbin and Port Arthur, itself connecting with the great 
Siberian Railroad, and with the Chinese road, via Newchwang 
to Pekin. For these reasons it may be regarded as the Hub of 
Manchuria, in many senses. The Russians had chosen it as head- 
quarters, and owing to its river and railroad communications it 
was also made a vast storehouse for commissary and ammunition. 
The city lies in the heart of a great fertile plain ending in foot 
hills which gradually ascend to encircling mountains, an average 
of fifteen miles away. These mountains were the Russian outer 
line of defence. The lesser hills, four and five miles away, were 
a second line of defence. Everywhere were semi-permanent 
forts, trenches, bombproofs, and every possible means of aiding 



OPENING OF THE BATTLE, 459 

the defenders in resisting attack. When the battle opened, Au- 
gust 26, the Russians occupied three groups of positions extend- 
ing in a semi-circle in front of and to the southward of the 
outer line of defences, so that the first guns of the Battle of 
Liaoyang were fired twenty miles away from the city proper. 
General Kuroki attacked from the east, General Nodzu on the 
south and General Oku on the west. In the meantime command 
of the united Japanese armies had been vested in General Mar- 
quis Oyama, to whom credit for succeeding results was accorded 
along with the three divisional commanders. General Kuroki, 
on the right flank, had 160,000 men ; General Nodzu, on the left 
flank, had 50,000 men, and General Oku, holding the centre, had 
30,000 men. General Kuropatkin himself, commanded the Rus- 
sian centre, with his right flank facing General Nodzu under 
Generals Stakelberg and Meyendorff, successively ; and his left 
facing General Oku under the Cossack generals Mistchenko and 
Rennenkampf. 

The battle opened August 24 when General Oku, emerging 
into the plain of Liaoyang attacked Anping with his left and 
centre, reserving his right flank for another movement not at 
that time foreseen. At the same time General Nodzu attacked 
the Russian right flank, forcing its retirement after a furious 
infantry charge and hand to hand struggle over the Russian 
trenches. Meantime the Japanese centre began a series of 
furious assaults on the Russian main position. The Japanese had 
in all, 1200 guns and more than half of that number were used 
to break Kuropatkin's main force. Shells fairly rained over the 
Russian lines, and each furious bombardment was instantly fol- 
lowed by an all but equally destructive tidal wave of Japanese 
troops. The battle of August 24 successfully drove in the Russian 
outposts and on August 25 the Japanese army was ready for the 
final operation against the Russian main force at Liaoyang. The 
obvious strategy was for General Kuroki to strike the Russian 
communications north of Liaoyang while the remaining divis- 
ions attacked from the south. Immediately the outposts came 
into touch, four miles north of Haicheng, General Oku was op- 
posed by a Russian rear guard sent to delay him. 

This force delayed the Japanese advance for three days, its 



460 LIAOYANG. 

efforts being aided by the weather, which put the roads in ter- 
rible condition. 

On the 29th, the headquarters halted while the advance guard 
felt the Russian front. 

The 30th opened threateningly, and found the Japanese^ army 
deployed under cover of the crops facing the seven hills which 
the Russians held. 

It was evident from the outset that General Oku's recent suc- 
cesses had caused him to despise the staying power of the enemy, 
for without waiting for adequate preparation he pushed his in- 
fantry down to the limit of the standing crops. The Russians 
from their rocky eminence could get occasional glimpses of the 
Japanese infantry columns, and they opened an accurate shrapnel 
fire from four gun positions which throughout the two days' 
fighting remained masked. 

The Russian tactics at Liaoyang were a revelation, for which 
General Oku had to pay dearly. As the Russian guns opened, 
the Japanese batteries, distributed all along the front, began to 
shell the crests, which looked likely to be gun positions, but the 
shelling that day had no effect upon the defender's fire beyond 
increasing its intensity. After an artillery duel lasting all day, 
more serious to the attack than to the defense, the divisional 
commanders were ordered to press the infantry forward. At 
dusk the movement was prepared by a heavy artillery fire, in 
which the Japanese had 160 field guns and 6o howitzers engaged. 
Against this the Russians returned a spirited fire from probably 
forty-eight field guns, the fire of which was indirect. 

The result of this infantry advance was abortive. Gallantly 
the little infantrymen responded to the order in groups of twelve, 
their formation for such an attack, and they pressed up toward 
the inferno prepared for them. 

The leading battalions of the Fourth and Sixth Divisions 
essayed to approach the rock entrance, but a sheet of lead from 
the loopholed village at the base of the eminence and from the 
supporting trenches swept them back, and they were fain to dig 
themselves into soft mud on the fringe of the standing corn. 
The Third Division, with the gallant Thirty-fourth Regiment 




JAPANESE TRUUPS CAUGHT IN BARBED WIRE ENTANGLEMENT, 



THE FIFTH DIVISION. 463 

leading, made a similar attempt nearer the centre, but the result 
was the same harrowing slaughter. The Fifth Division had 
made better progress, though this was little to them, considering 
the disparity in the rival forces. The laurels rested with the 
Russians, but the Japanese art of war counsels persistency. In 
spite of the failure of the first attack, another was ordered to 
begin at 2 o'clock the following morning. The cold, gray morn- 
ing witnessed another scene of slaughter on the Russian right 
as the defenders again hurled the attack back. An enfilading 
fire on every salient point swept each rush away before the men 
could even lay their hands on the entanglements. 

The Fifth Division had more success against the Russian left. 
The position here was composed of brush, covered like a hog's 
back, sloping to the east and defended by a triple line of trenches, 
with a glacis protected by a ten-foot entanglement covering a 
honeycomb of pits containing spikes at the bottom. The lower 
feature of this hill was a salient hut. The upper works were 
flanked by a conical hill in front, which acted as a bastion, and 
was cunningly entrenched. In the semi-darkness of the morning 
the Forty-first Regiment carried this under feature after losing 
seventy-five of the loo pioneers who hacked a way through the 
entanglements with axes, the men rushing through the gap, over- 
powering the sentries in the trenches before their support, still 
sleeping in the splinter proofs behind, could reinforce them. But 
da}'break brought to light a tragedy of the kind common in mod- 
ern war. Heavy shell fire, believed to be from the Japanese 
guns, drove this gallant storming party from its hold, filling the 
Russian trenches with Japanese dead. Thus, an hour after sun- 
rise, the position of the defense and the attack on this point was 
practically in status quo. 

All the preceding day the sound of the Fifth Division's guns, 
and more mufifled booming to the northeast, had been heard, 
which came from General Kuroki's guns ; but it would seem cer- 
tain that Kuropatkin had concentrated his main force previously 
in an endeavor to crush Kuroki, and that thereby the main fea- 
ture of the Japanese strategical plan had failed. 

Neither the Tenth Division nor Kuroki had made any percept- 
26 



464 LIAOYaNG. 

ible progress in the five days' fighting, and after the second day 
the Russians only held Oku and Nodzu with rear guard. On the 
31st the weather was fine and the energy of the southern attack 
all the morning was concentrated in the artillery fire on Bushy 
Hill, that had been won and lost. At 10 o'clock the Fifth Divis- 
ion moved against the Russian left. The slow, creeping work of 
the division had enabled them to approach within a nearer range 
of the enemy, and their little hand howitzers, which w^eapons 
accompanied every infantry brigade, were now brought up to 
support the firing line. They massed against the rocky excres- 
cences, which gave cover from the Russian artillery fire until the 
preparations were complete. Then they extended down the inner 
and outer slope of the ridge in company columns, single file, 
shoulder to shoulder, lying down. 

At a quarter to 12 the advanced lines broke into groups of 
twelve and began a series of movements according to the usual 
method of Japanese infantry attack. After making a short rush 
the men lay down. They did not fire a rifle. 

No support coming from the supports in the rear in this case, 
the firing line was thrown out along the actual crest, which 
divided the two attacking lines. There was a moment of intense 
excitement, while the summit of the Russian position resembled 
a miniature Mount Pelee in eruption, owing to the bursting of 
dozens of Shimose shells. The head of the assault was in a 
gap in the entanglements. The artillery was supporting the 
assault. Three or four ground mines exploded in the midst 
of the leading assaulting groups, then, as the smoke cleared, the 
black-coated Russians were seen leaving their position. 

In a moment the Japanese were in, and the whole of the lines 
in support on the crest fired down the slope into the retreating 
Russians. 

But one swallow does not make a summer. Although the 
under feature of the Bushy Hill was carried, the rest of the assault 
failed miserably. No Japanese could live within 500 yards of 
the bastion hill, and though the Japanese groups were as numer- 
ous as swarming bees, it was only to be swept backwards into 
cover again, leaving behind a heavy price for their valor. 



THfi tHIRD ASSAULT. 465 

The handful of men who seized the hill were able to hold it, 
but they could not advance an inch, and thus the afternoon wore 
on. All along the line no movement could be traced except the 
moving- nearer in of some few Japanese batteries. The artillery 
duel, however, continued unabated. Along the fringe of the 
Japanese front individual infantrymen had crept forward and 
dug themselves in where the mountain watercourses made it pos- 
sible to escape the searching fire of the Russian rifles, while all 
the time the Russian shrapnel was causing hundreds of casualties 
in the flats. 

But Oku was growing desperate. From the position of the 
Fifth Division it was evident that the Tenth Division and Kuroki 
were making no headway, so Oku determined upon a third gen- 
eral assault that night, the third assault in twenty-four hours! 
But all day he had been moving his reserves up into the firing 
line. 

At 7 o'clock the whole strength of the Japanese artillery began 
a rapid fire against the whole position, taking it in sections. This 
continued for an hour, and afterward, for a third time, the infan- 
try was hurled against the position. 

This general assault was a repetition of all the previous 
assaults. There was gruesome evidence the following morning 
to show how like hares in snares the heroic Japanese infantry 
had struggled into the barbed-wire entanglements to die ; how, 
blundering in darkness, sections had thrown themselves down 
thirty yards from the flaring line of muzzles whose goal they 
were never to win. 

But the first battalion of the Thirty-fourth Regiment, which 
for forty-eight hours had been lying in the scrub at the foot of 
the green glacis on the central hill, broke through the abatis and 
entanglements, and in spite of a flanking fire, which swept away 
group after group, had enough endurance to reach the first 
trench. 

What happened there none knows, but in the morning Rus- 
sians and Japanese were lying intermingled waist deep in the 
ditch, while from parapet to entanglement, perhaps 150 yards, 
a thick trail of prostrate khaki told a tale of horror. 

Everywhere again the assault had failed. 



466 LIAOYANG. 

The divisional telephone told headquarters the desperate news, 
but the Japanese infantry motto is not to know failure. 

When Oku's infantry began to move against the town they 
found that the enemy by no means intended to abandon it without 
a struggle. 

As the infantry began the advance, the Russian artillery opened 
fire from three positions in front of the town, and by 9 o'clock 
it was realized that the two forces had settled down to another 
stubborn battle. 

The progress made by General Oku during the day was slow. 
The Fifth Division and part of General Nodzu's command made 
better progress. 

Again the rearguard, having completed its duty, retired, and 
General Oku again ordered one of those terrific artillery prepara- 
tions which preceded the Japanese infantry assaults. It seemed 
that everything before it must be annihiliated and that nothing 
could live. 

Just as the fire reached its zenith all along the line the three 
Russian artillery positions burst into answering flame, and the 
Japs were surrounded with bursts of rapid shrapnel fire. The 
Russians were not done with yet. 

That night the attaches were informed that General Oku had 
ordered a general attack, which was destined to be final. The 
promised atttack did not take place until just before sunrise no 
September 3. It was desperate, but it failed with considerable 
loss. It was evident from the increase in the vehemence of the 
Japs' artillery fire at 9 o'clock that morning that General Oku 
had received information which determined him to roll, up the 
Russian line no matter at what cost. The Russians still main- 
tained fire from their three groups of guns. 

The Japs concentrated their fire on each Russian battery posi- 
tion in turn, and they seemed to turn their immediate vicinity 
into a Hades of bursting shell, raising dense columns of smoke 
and dust. Out of the smoke, however, still came answering 
flashes, as, despite everything, the Russian gunners doggedly 
returned fire with fire. With fast work from their quick-fires, 
the Japanese artillery fire ceased, and it was evident that another 




A I.AST GAI.I.ANT STAND OF RUSSIAN GUNNERS, 



RUSSIANS LAST EFFORT. 469 

attempt at a general advance was to be made. The nifantry had 
howitzers supporting the advance until the last moment, when 
the fire in the background gave evidence that Kuroki's Tenth 
Division was endeavoring to complete the ruin upon which Gen- 
eral Oku was so intent. 

But General Oku's attempt was only a repetition of the ghastly 
carnage. The Fifth Division, however, made better headway. 
In a moment it seemed that the Japanese infantry would be upon 
the Russian battery on the left, but the line of Russian trenches 
stayed the Japanese rush, and their gallantry only went to swell 
the tale of casualties. General Oku, however, would not brook 
failure. Shortly before ii the artillery preparation began. 

This time it was the severest concentrated artillery fire that 
the world has ever seen. Every gun belonging to the Japanese 
corps concentrated a rapid fire on the left of Kuropatkin's posi- 
tion, namely, on the section immediately in front of the Russian 
settlement in the angle of the city wall. It was a magnificent, 
yet awful and awe-inspiring spectacle. The Shimose shells burst 
and threw great columns of black and yellow smoke into the air. 

In a moment the roofs of the Russian station buildings shot up 
into flame and pillars of dense cloud formed as a pall above the 
settlement. Yet the blackness of this sombre canopy was relieved 
by countless sparkling flashes and white puffs from the bursting 
of shrapnel till the whole of the mottled mass obscured the view 
of the town behind. Nothing could live under this, and the end 
of the Russian resistance had come. 

Satisfied themselves, the Japanese gunners rested from the 
work of devastation and slaughter, when suddenly out of the 
midst of the smoke and murky dust left from the reeking shrap- 
nel came the counter flashes from two or three heroic Russian 
batteries. 

This was the Russians' last effort — a magnificent farewell to 
the enemy they had balked so long. A heavy rifle fire continued 
all the afternoon, and it was effective, if one could judge by the 
constant passing toward the firing line of the strings of Chinese 
stretcher bearers. There was evidence that Liaoyang would 
be abandoned, but it seemed certain that, though defeated and 



470 



LI AO YANG. 



forced by superior numbers, superior artillery and to some extent 
by superior troops, General Kuropatkin had in turn defeated the 
Japanese strategy, for, as far a* we could learn, General Kuroki 
was still fighting to get astride, but instead of his being astride 
the Russians' communications that evening the remaining Rus- 
sians in the trenches still kept the Japanese at bay. But the 
iron-minded Oku, little reckoning that his fierce assaults had 
already cost him close to 20,000 men, determined upon a final 
enveloping assault. The last reserves were pushed in and at 
3 A. M. the Japanese army, after five days of the fiercest fighting 
the world has seen since the American Civil War, seized the rail- 
way bridge and were in occupation of Liaoyang. General Kuro- 
patkin, with the last of the Siberian Rifles, had left Liaoyang at 
1.30 A. M. 

Strategy had finally turned the tide against Kuropatkin. On 
the last day of August, General Kuroki's missing right flank 
effected a crossing by pontoon bridges over the Taitse, twenty 
miles above Liaoyang and began to turn the Russian flank. The 
news paralyzed the Russian resistance south of the river. With- 
in six hours the first retrograde movement was made and there- 
after through three memorable days withdrawal followed with- 
drawal, the Japanese hotly pressing at the rear, until Liaoyang 
was the Russian rear and then the Taitse was crossed and finally 
the whole battlefield and twenty-five miles more were under the 
Japanese flag. 

Kuroki's flanking movement turned the tide. It became neces- 
sary for General Kuropatkin to meet this movement, and moving 
part of his forces north of the river the Russians attacked with 
furious determination. So furious indeed was the attack that 
for three days Kuroki's fate hung in the balance. He had been 
discovered with but half of his force across the river and only 
his success in finally uniting his army north of the Taitse pre- 
vented a disaster to this wing of Oyama's army, which might 
have changed the whole story of the struggle. Failing to crush 
Kuroki, Kuropatkin was compelled to acknowledge himself 
flanked and began the retreat, and on Sunday, September 4, the 
Japanese armies entered Liaoyang, with Kuropatkin's army ten 



RETREAT OF THE RUSSIANS. 4/1 

miles away, fleeing northward, and Kuroki on his flank too 
exhausted to strike. 

The flight and pursuit make a memorable closing chapter to 
the story of this gigantic struggle. Several times the Russian 
rearguard was threatened with being cut off and General Stakel- 
berg narrowly saved his force again and again, one of the wings 
of his force under General Orloff having been practically anni- 
hilated. The Russian forces by September 8 had reached the 
Yentai coal mines. Here Kuroki, after a three days' rest, 
attacked and compelled a continuation of the retreat further 
north, Russia thus losing one of her three sources of coal supply 
in Manchuria. The battle of Liaoyang and rearguard fighting 
which followed it came to an end with the fighting at Yentai 
mines. In the ten days' fighting ending September 3, the Rus- 
loss of 17,000 killed and wounded. General Kuropatkin by mar- 
vellous management saved his baggage and his baggage trains 
and succeeded in destroying all the stores in Liaoyang before the 
city fell into the hands of the Japanese. Marshal Oyama, on the 
other hand reported that he secured vast and valuable stores in 
the city. 




SHAKHE RIVER. 

1904 A. D. 
BY G, W. HOBBS^ JR. 

HE Battle of the Shakhe River was a desperate 
effort on the part of General Kuropatkin to 
redeem the disastrous loss of Liaoyang and 
aside from adding another to the memorable 
military struggles of history is the longest con- 
tinuous battle ever fought, having continued 
from October 5, 1904," until October 20. 
Fully 400,000 men fought in the two armies, 
the line of actual battle extending for fifty-two miles. The fighting 
was even more desperate than at Liaoyang and the losses on 
both sides far heavier. Not less than 70,000 men were killed 
and wounded, of which number fully 50,000 were Russians. 
Victory hung in the balance until the closing days of the battle, 
when the Japanese, by furious infantry flank and centre assaults, 
broke the Russian lines, and with the exception of a single posi- 
tion, Lone Tree Hill, became masters of the field. The long 
struggle has so exhausted Oyama's troops that no advantage 
could be taken of the triumph. As at Liaoyang there was no 
decisive result beyond proving once more the wonderful skil' 
of Japan's generals and the superb fighting qualities of her sol- 
diery. The Russians, despite ultimate defeat, gave also a splen- 
did exhibition of determination and valor and though defeated 
were not vanquished. 

For nearly three weeks after the terrible battle of Liaoyang 
the Russians and Japanese seemed to have suspended operations 
for much needed rest and a rearrangement of their lines. The 
Russians were centered at Mukden, 40 miles north of Liaoyang, 
while a strong force had continued 20 miles farther north to Tie 

473 



474 SHAKHE RIVER. 

Pass, a strategical position commanding the gateway to the vast 
central Manchurian plain, of which Harbin is the centre. The 
three Japanese armies had pushed on in pursuit of the Russians 
to Yentai and the Yentai coal mines and thence ten miles north- 
ward to the Shakhe River, spelled also Shako and Chako, the 
"ho" being a Chinese termination meaning river. It was this 
stream that divided the Japanese vanguard and the Russian 
rearguard and became the centre of the great battle which fol- 
lowed. 

On October 2 General Kuropatkin announced that a new battle 
was to be fought. What prompted the announcement will per- 
haps never be known. Political enemies were at work against 
the Russian general at St. Petersburg and it may have been 
a desperate move to regain failing prestige. It is more probable 
that the Tsar himself commanded the advance to quiet rising 
storms in Russia through the appeal to national patriotism that 
would have followed a great victory. General Kuropatkin's an- 
nouncement of impending battle .was made in an order of the 
day, October 2. He complimented his troops on their bravery 
and declared that "heretofore we have not been numerically 
strong enough to defeat the Japanese army," and concluded thus : 

"Heretofore the enemy, in operating, has relied on his great 
forces and disposing his armies so as to surround us, has chosen 
as he deemed fit, his time for attack, but now the moment to go 
to meet the enemy, for which the whole army has been longing, 
lias come, and the time has arrived for us to compel the Japanese 
to do our will, for the forces of the Manchurian Army are strong 
enough to begin forward movement." 

The proclamation is remarkable inasmuch as it gave complete 
warning to the Japanese and deserves a place in history as an 
effective factor in determining the outcome of the succeeding 
memorable battle. Warned of the enemy's plan. Field Marshal 
Oyama was ready. Kuropatkin. it will be seen, literally put his 
head in the jaws of the lion. The full text of this remarkable 
proclamation was as follows : 

"More than seven months ago the enemy treacherously fell 
upon us at Port Arthur before war had been declared. Since 



kuropatkin's proclamation. 475 

then, by land and sea, the Russian troops have performed many 
heroic deeds, of which the Fatherland may justly be proud. The 
enemy, however, is not only not overthrown, but in his arrogance 
continues to dream of complete victory. 

"The troops of the Manchurian Army, in unvarying good 
spirits, hitherto have not been numerically strong enough to 
defeat the Japanese Army. Much time is necessary for over- 
coming all of the difficulties of strengthening the active army 
so as to enable it to accomplish with complete success the arduous 
but honorable task imposed upon it. It is for this reason that, 
in spite of the repeated repulse of Japanese attacks on our posi- 
tions at Tatchekiao, Liandiansian and Liaoyang, I did not con- 
sider that the time had arrived to take advantage of these suc- 
cesses and to begin a forward movement, and I therefore gave 
the order to retreat. 

"You left the positions you had so heroically defended, covered 
with piles of the enemy's dead, and without allowing yourselves 
to be disturbed by the foe and in full preparedness for a fresh 
fight. After a five days' battle at Liaoyang you retired on new 
positions which had been prepared previously. After success- 
fully defending all advanced and main positions, you withdrew 
to Mukden under most difficult conditions. 

"Attacked by General Kuroki's army, you marched through 
almost impassable mud, fighting throughout the day and extri- 
cating guns and carts with your hands at night and returned 
to Mukden without abandoning a single gun. prisoner or wounded 
man, and with the baggage train entirely intact. 

"I ordered the retreat with a sorrowful heart, but with un- 
shaken confidence that it was necessary in order to gain com- 
plete and decisive victory over the enemy when the time came. 

"The Emperor has assigned for the conflict with Japan forces 
sufficient to assure us victory. All difficulties in transporting 
these forces over a distance of lo.ooo versts are being overcome 
in a spirit of self-sacrifice and with indomitable energy and -skill 
by Russian men of every branch and rank of the service and 
every social position to whom has been entrusted this work, 
which for difficulty is unprecedented in the history of warfare. 



476 SHAKHE RIVER. 

"In the course of seven months hundreds of thousands of men 
and tens of thousands of horses and carts and millions of pounds 
of stores have been coming uninterruptedly by rail from Euro- 
pean Russia and Siberia to Manchuria. 

"If the regiments which already have been sent out prove 
insufficient, fresh troops will arrive, for the inflexible will of the 
Emperor that we should vanquish the foe will be inflexibly ful- 
filled. 

"Heretofore the enemy, in operating, has relied on his great 
forces, and, disposing his armies so as to surround us, has 
chosen as he deemed fit his time for attack ; but now the moment 
to go to meet the enemy, for which the whole army has been 
longing, has come, and the time has arrived for us to compel 
the Japanese to do our will, for the forces of the Manchurian 
Army are strong enough to begin a forward movement. Never- 
theless, you must be unceasingly mindful of the victory to be 
gained over our strong and gallant foe. 

"In addition to numerical strength in all commands, from the 
lowest to the highest, the firm determination must be to prevail, 
to gain victory. Whatever be the sacrifice necessary to this end, 
bear in mind the importance of victory to Russia ; and, above all, 
remember how necessary victory is — the more speedily to relieve 
our brothers at Port Arthur, 'who for seven months have hero- 
ically maintained the defense of the fortress entrusted to their 
care. 

"Our army, strong in its union with the Emperor and all Rus- 
sia, performed great deeds of heroism for the Fatherland in all 
wars and gained for itself well-merited renown among all na- 
tions. Think at every hour of the defense of Russia's dignity 
and rights in the Far East, which have been entrusted to you 
by the Emperor's wish. Think at every hour that to you the 
defense of the honor and fame of the whole Russian Army has 
been confided. 

"The illustrious head of the Russian land, together with the 
whole of Russia, prays for you, blesses you for your heroic deeds. 
Strengthened by this prayer and the consciousness of the im- 
portance of the task that has fallen to us, we must go forward 



2 



O 

r 

Cd 
O 



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■*■ <• ^^ 




'A*36t» 



AN ELEVEN DAYS^ BATTLE. 479 

fearlessly, with a firm determination to do our duty to the end, 
without sparing our lives. 

"The will of God be with us all." 

Three days after the proclamation had been issued the Rus- 
sian's advance began and at first it seemed to find the Japanese 
unprepared. Several important outposts, notably General Ku- 
roki's strongly fortified position at Bentsiaputze, had been cap- 
tured by the Russians with small loss. The Russians were full 
of enthusiasm, eager for battle, roused almost to a frenzy by 
skillful appeals to their patriotism. In the first impetus of their 
forward movement they drove in the scattered outposts of the 
Japanese armies with but little difificulty and along all of the 
fifty-two miles of the front the early days found the Japanese 
falling back, and the Russians, mile by mile nearing the mid- 
ground of the huge battlefield, the Shakhe River, On the west 
they bid fair to blanket the Japanese and penetrated to points due 
west from Yentai. They swept over the Hun River, and pressed 
on until finally after innuemrable small engagements the actual 
Japanese position was reached and the struggle began in earnest. 

But the Russian successes were veritable will-o'-the-wisps, 
leading them on to disaster. 

The Japanese retreats had served to concentrate their armies 
in three great units. The extreme right, under General Kuroki, 
rested at Pensihu. The centre was at Yentai, and the line ex- 
tended thence westward to the Hun River. Field Marshal Oyama 
strongly reinforced General Kuroki since the Russian plan was 
to turn the Japanese right, and sent a column still farther east- 
ward to flank in turn the Russians, a strategic move which 
ultimately turned the flank of the Russian flankers and changed 
the whole course of the battle. 

Meantime Kuropatkin with his centre army crossed the Hun, 
southward, and advanced along the railroad to give battle to the 
Japanese centre at Yentai Here he was faced by General Oku 
and General Nodzu. The brunt of the eleven days' fighting 
which followed was borne by these centre armies, numbering in 
all 300,000 men, and the fury of attack and counter attack added 
a new page to the horrors of war. Day after day, column on 



4§0 SHAkHE RIVER. 

column, advancing and retreating swept back and forth across 
the field, leaving thousands of dead and dying under the glare 
of bursting shrapnel and the pall of powder smoke. Three thous- 
and machine guns and cannon fairly littered the plain with frag- 
ments of steel, furrowed the countryside, and fields of grain, 
and mowed down whole companies of both armies in an awful 
rain of death. Single positions changed hands a dozen times a 
day and always freshly strewn corpses told of one more attack 
and retreat. And so the struggle waged, a deadlock at the centre, 
until the outgeneraled, outflanked Russian army after eleven 
days of fruitless attack and awful carnage began the retreat 
north of the Shakhe, which by October 20 had brought the battle 
to a close. General Kuroki remained master of the position on 
the Japanese right only after fighting as severe as that at the 
centre. When the eleven days fighting was over, his troops 
buried 5,000 Russian dead. Only one feature of the realignment 
was disadvantageous to the Japanese. They had lost Lone Tree 
Hill, a position commanding the entire range of territory covered 
by the armies when the long struggle came to an end. Lone 
Tree Hill is a rugged eminence, 200 feet high, east of the rail- 
road bridge crossing the Shakhe River. The Japanese in their 
onward rush in the eighth day of the battle had swept up its 
slopes and the sun flag supplanted the Russian. General Oyama 
failed to sufficiently reinforce the victors holding the hill. Kuro- 
patkin appreciated its importance both as a site for artillery and 
for purposes of observation. When night fell the Siberian rifle- 
men were called upon to storm and retake the lost position. One 
thousand of them with fixed bayonets toiled up the northern 
slopes of the hill. Above them the exhausted enemy, 500 in all, 
lay lost in sleep, and even the sentinels failed to note the foe 
stealthily creeping nearer and nearer. The Russians were with- 
in one hundred yards before the alarm was given. There was 
barely time for the surprised Japanese to seize their arms before 
the Siberians were upon them Then followed a hand to hand 
struggle rarely if ever equalled, in ferocity or valor. Until day- 
light the clash of steel rang from end to end of the hill. Not a 
shot was fired. Quarter was neither asked nor given. Like 



Loss OF LONE TREE HILL. 48T 

wild beasts the two forces struggled, the Japanese, outnumbered 
two to one, battling with the fanatic fatalism for which they 
have been famous for centuries, the Russians striving with that 
dogged determination and mad abandon which has immortalized 
the name Cossack. At daylight a half hundred Japanese sur- 
vivors, not one' un wounded, were finally overpowered. The Rus- 
sian flag was unfurled, to remain. Oyama sent force after force 
to retake the hill but Kuropatkin not making the error of his 
opponent, doubled the number of defenders, packed the summit 
with machine guns and field artillery and again and again the 
Japanese advanced only to immolate themselves on hillsides 
already littered with a thousand of their dead. The struggle 
was finally abandoned. The exhausted Japanese shrank from 
further assaults and Lone Tree Hill remained the dearly bought 
possession of Kuropatkin, its story the one bright chapter in 
Russia's long series of defeats. 







'% 




PORT ARTHUR. 




1904 A. D. 
BY G. W. HOBBS, JR. 

N the siege of Port Arthur, the Russian-Japanese 
War has contributed one of the most remark- 
able miHtary episodes of history. There have 
been longer sieges, and costlier sieges to 
human life, but never before have weapons of 
such awful destructiveness been brought to 
bear on fortresses so vas.tly strong. All of 
the capabilities of modern engines of battle 
there faced each other. Impregnability versus irresistibility 
seemed almost to have been realized when the Titans began their 
struggle. In the end the Gibraltar of the East fell, but not 
before its defenders had won an immortal name, nor before the 
besiegers had proved themselves among the mightiest of the 
earth. The perspective of time will bring the events of the siege 
into more accurate relative relations. The material events will 
be segregated from the immaterial ; credit will be accorded to 
whom credit is due, but Time itself will never rob either the 
Spartan defence, nor the fanatically desperate atttack of a place 
among history's most remarkable military achievements. 

The taking of Port Arthur culminated what may be regarded 
as the primary purpose of Japan in beginning the war with 
Russia. In 1894 this natural fortress had been captured by 
Japan in her war with China. Possession of it had been wrested 
from her by the Powers, their action having been inspired by 
Russia. Four years later Russia secured from China a lease 
of the peninsula on which Port Arthur stands. A wave of anger 
swept over Japan and the decision to have revenge, then formed, 
was as the distant rumbling of thunder before the breaking of a 
27 48s 



486 PORT ARTHUR. 

storm. Russia saw this as all the world saw it. With feverish 
haste hundreds of millions were spent in fortifications to make 
of this position the Gibraltar of the East, Russian influence mean- 
time spread throughout Southern Manchuria, but this fact be- 
came of significance when the Yalu River was reached and Rus- 
sian tradesmen undertook to extend their activities into Korea. 
Then followed the diplomatic exchanges between Japan and 
Russia. Japan demanded a definite statement of the zones of 
influence of the two countries, asking nothing in Manchuria but 
insisting that Korea be not encroached upon. Freedom for com- 
mercial activity was demanded for all of the territory in dispute. 
Russia dallied and amended the Japanese proposals until that 
memorable February 6, 1904, when diplomatic relations were 
ended and war was on. 

As truly as that from the moment Russia leased Port Arthur, 
war was inevitable, so was it inevitable that Japan's land and 
sea campaign should centre around this stronghold. Every act 
on land and sea in the first twelvemonth of the war was part of 
a gigantic, cruel drama which culminated, gloriously for Japan, 
on Sunday, January i, 1905, with the proflfer of surrender by 
General Stoessel, commander of the garrison of Port Arthur. 
Japan had avenged 1894 and 1898. 

The siege of Port Arthur falls naturally into three divisions: 
the attacks on the Russian fleet and the bombardment of the city 
by Admiral Togo ; the land operations, leading to investment ; 
and the siege proper. 

Admiral Togo, commander of Japan's united fleets, struck 
the first blow on February 8-9. The first attack disabled seven 
Russian ships, reducing the effective naval force so far below 
that of the Japanese that it was impossible to give battle at sea. 
To bottle up the harbor then became Admiral Togo's task. The 
first attempt was made February 24. and similar attempts, alter- 
nated with tremendous bombardments, continued throughout 
February, March, April and until May 3, when four merchant 
ships were run under the guns of the batteries and were sunk, 
seeming to seal the harbor. 

Subsequent events proved, however, that the Japanese dash 
and valor had accomplished no actual results. • 



NAVAL OPERATION- 4?^7 

The first actual battle of the fleets too-R place April 13, a battle 
which resulted in disaster to Russia. Admiral Alakaroff was 
lured from the harbor by a ruse, a weak Japanese squadron hav- 
ing appeared off the harbor, the bulk of the fleet remaining 
under the horizon. After a long range battle the Russians saw 
the trap and ran for the harbor. The flagship Petropavlovsk 
struck a mine, and sank with more than 600 men on board. Admi- 
ral Makaroff among them, as well as the famous painter \'erast- 
chagin. 

The beginning of May found the land campaign converging 
toward Port Arthur and the navy doubled its vigilance. So thor- 
oughly was the Russian fleet bottled by incessant bombardment 
and show of aggressive force that, on May 30, Dalny fell into 
Japan's hands with the Port Arthur fleet powerless to interfere, 
its last offensive act having been a bombardment of the Japanese 
at Nanshan Hill, May 26. 

The second sortie of the Russian fleet took place June 23-24. 
Admiral Wirenius reached a point ten miles off the harbor, then 
turned and fled, reaching the harbor with several ships badly 
damaged. The Japanese resumed bombardment, and on August 
I repulsed a sortie of Russian torpedo boats. 

On August 10 took place the greatest incident in the naval 
operations. The Russian fleet left the harbor and, after a great 
battle, was defeated and dispersed. Five battleships were dam- 
aged, the Russian Admiral, Withoft, was killed. Most of the 
ships got back to Port Arthur. Others sought refuge in ports 
on the China coast. This was the fleet's valedictory. The block- 
ade was thereafter rigorously drawn and bombardments followed 
at intervals, but Togo's fleet was only called on to maintain a 
blockade. The final crushing blow was delivered by the army 
from 203-Metre Hill. The Russian battleship Sevastopol es- 
caped the land batteries, and once more the Japanese destroyers 
were called on. With old time valor they attacked and left the 
last of Russia's big ships a wreck on the beach of the outer 
harbor. With the Russian fleet effectually destroyed, Admiral 
Togo, on December 25, 1904, released most of his fleet, and him- 
self returned to Japan. 



488 PORT ARTHUR. 

The investment of Port Arthur followed the capture and occu- 
pation of Dalny after a campaign on land which opened with the 
victory at the Yalu, May i. A second Japanese army, under 
General Oku, landed at Takushan when the Yalu had been 
crossed, and a third, under General Nodzu, landed almost simul- 
taneously at Pitsewo. Each army won a preliminary victory and 
advanced toward Kinchow, thirty-two miles north of Port 
Arthur, commanding a narrow neck of land joining the Liao- 
tung Peninsula with the Manchuria mainland. From sea to sea 
extend Kinchow heights, with Nanshan Hill just south of them. 
The Japanese took the ridges and Nanshan Hill by a desperate 
frontal attack lasting six days. A bayonet charge in the face of 
machine gun fire was the marvelous feat which finally swept the 
Russians in flight toward Port Arthur. The Japanese losses 
were 4,300 men, and the Russians lost as many more. The Jap- 
anese swept on into the peninsula and by the capture of Dalny 
made possible the landing of the fourth Japanese army under 
General Nogi, the besiegers now numbering 90,000 men . 

After the battle of Nanshan Hill, on May 27, the Japanese 
pursued the retreating Russians to the southwest. Before their 
retreat the Russians evacuated Dalny. In their retirement the 
Russians swept past Dalny to a position on the heights six miles 
to the southeast. 

On the right flank, along the railway, the Japanese drove the 
Russians as far as Anshu Mountain, eighteen miles northeast of 
Port Arthur, where they made a stand. The Russian line ex- 
tended across the peninsula to Socho Mountain, on the east coast, 
ten miles northeast of Port Arthur. The centre rested on two 
hills, Waito Hill, which is 1,100 feet high, and Fing Hill, re- 
named Ken Hill by the Japanese, which is 1,200 feet high. 

The position was a strong one ; but, owing to the great height 
of the hills, the Russians left many dead on the ground, the 
regular line of the Russians making the approach of the Japanese 
comparatively easy. 

The Russian force consisted of remnants of the Fifth, Thir- 
teenth, Fourteenth and Twenty-eighth Regiments of sharpshoot- 
ers, but was later increased by some troops from Port Arthur, 




JAPANESE SCAEING FORT AT PORT ARTHUR. 



OCCUPATION OF DALNY. 49I 

the number of which was unknown The Japanese occupied the 
lower range of hills, and held a line in front of the Russians 
across the peninsula from Daishe Mountain east of Anshu Moun- 
tain to the west coast. The distance between the two forces 
was from a mile to a mile and a half. These relative positions 
were occupied from May 28 to June 26, during which period 
there was no fighting, with the exception of occasional skirmishes 
between scouts in the valley which separated the two armies. 
Dalny was entered by the Japanese on May 29. Many public 
and private buildings there had been destroyed by the Russians 
previous to the evacuation, and the city was looted by the Chinese 
before the Japanese troops arrived. In the reorganization of the 
second and third armies after the arrival of General Nogi, the 
first division, which pursued the Russians after the battle of 
Nanshan Hill, was made part of the third army. On June 26, 
General Nogi advanced against the Russian position. The ad- 
vance was begun by the left wing, and before dayhght the out- 
posts of the Russians were easily driven in. White Mountain 
was taken at 9 o'clock, as it was easily outflanked. 

An advance guard, consisting of one regiment and one battery 
of mountain guns, attacked Ken Mountain at 12 o'clock. The 
position was a very difficult one, but up the steep and pathless 
mountain the Japanese infantry went, scaling the heights with 
unexampled bravery under a withering fire from the mountain 
top. The Russians exploded electrical mines on the mountain- 
side as the lines advanced, but they did little damage. The Rus- 
sian force, consisting of tw^o battalions of infantry, with four 
rapid-fire guns and some machine guns fought with great deter- 
mination, but the Japanese captured the position and two of the 
rapid-fire guns at 5 o'clock in the evening. The casualties were 
150 on each side. The capture of Ken Mountain enabled the 
Japanese to swing to the left and to occupy Socho Mountain, and 
later in the evenng the whole line of the Russian position. Dur- 
ing the afternoon three cruisers and four gunboats of the Rus- 
sian Port Arthur fleet shelled the Japanese left flank from the 
shore near Shaopingtao. The Japanese fleet arrived, and after 
a short sea fight the Russian ships were forced back to the bar- 



492 



PORT ARTHUR. 



bor at Port Arthur. On the morning of July 3, a whole division 
of Russians advanced against the Japanese left with bands play- 
ing and banners flying. The division carried many machine guns. 
The Russians attacked with great spirit and fought until they 
were within 300 yards of the Japanese, when they were forced 
to retire with heavy casualties. On the next night a company 
of Russians climbed the slopes of Ken Mountain and came close 
to the permanent works which had been erected at the top of the 
mountain by the Japanese after its capture, and but for meeting 
with an unexpected obstruction the Russians would have cap- 
tured the works. A desperate fight followed at close quarters, 
and there were several fierce bayonet charges before the Russians 
were repulsed and driven down the slope of the mountain. 

On the following day the Russians again attacked the whole 
line of the Japanese left, and on the same night made another 
attempt to surprise the Japanese. Both of the attacks were re- 
pulsed. The Russian casualties during the three days' fighting 
were 800 and those of the Japanese 300. By the middle of July 
the Japanese Navy had cleared Talien Bay of Russian mines, and 
Dalny was made the depot and base of the third army. At the 
same time the force was increased by the arrival of a division 
consisting of independent brigades of the second reserve infantry. 

From July 5 to July 26, there was no fighting, and the time was 
employed by the Russians in making semi-permanent fortifica- 
tions upon their naturally strong position, with a line extend- 
ing across the peninsula from Swangtaikou. on the west coast, 
through the Anshu and Ojikei mountain ranges to Lootduo 
Mountain, on the east coast and south to the Tai Creek. On the 
morning of July 26, the Japanese advanced and bombarded the 
Russian positions on Anshu and Ojikei Mountains. That night 
the Japanese attack on the Russian centre was repulsed with 
heavy losses. The next morning the attack was renewed on 
Ojikei Mountain, under cover of a heavy and concentrated artil- 
lery fire. The advance of the infantry was enormously difficult, 
as the mountain sides were almost precipitous. The Russians 
remained in the trenches until the last moment, and were only 
driven out by several bayonet charges. Many Japanese were 



RUSSIANS DRIVEN BACK. . 493 

wounded. The Japanese were struck by loose stones which were 
hurled at them by the Russians above when they were climbing 
the slopes. There was also hard fighting on the left flank, where 
the positions were very difficult to take. A body of Russian 
troops held on to Laotzu Hill long after the rest of the line had 
retired. The Japanese made a desperate effort to outflank them, 
but during the night the force escaped. 

On the morning of July 28, the Russians evacuated their posi- 
tions along the entire line and retreated to a new line from Taku 
Mountain, on the east coast, through Fenghoan range to a point 
on the west coast. The Japanese advanced before daylight or 
the 30th, and surprised the Russian outposts, who retired, leav- 
ing their kits, blankets and rifles piled in their bivouacs. A short 
fight followed with the Russian main position, but the Russians 
soon retired within the line of permanent fortifications on the 
west and centre, but held on to Taku and Shonku Mountains 
and the hills close to the east coast. The Japanese line w^as now 
as close to the Russian line of forts as possible, except on the 
east coast, where Taku and Shonku Mountains, strong strategic 
points, were held by the Russians. The Russians only fought 
rear-guard actions during the two months they held these posi- 
tions, deciding to wait until they could inflict more serious losses 
on the Japanese and then retire in good order to their next 
natural positions. General Stoessel was evidently unwilling to 
sacrifice his men by holding these positions, though they were 
strong ones, and he was also evidently afraid of being outflanked 
by a superior force. 

The Japanese successes were purchased dearly, but they were 
wonderful, considering the tremendous difficulties the Japanese 
encountered in a country which is a series of natural fortresses 
almost impregnable. Nevertheless they had accomplished the 
first necessity of every siege, they had driven the enemy within 
his permanent works. Every blow hereafter counted toward the 
ultimate purpose. Blow on blow was struck. So successful had 
been these earlier efforts that both the Japanese generals and 
troops expected a speedy termination of the struggle. Neverthe- 
less, an heroic army v^as to immolate itself on those mountain 
sides before victory became a fact. 



494 PORT ARTHUR. 

June 14-16 the battle of Telissu was fought and General 
Stakelberg, who had been sent southward by Kuropatkin to re- 
lieve Port Arthur, was defeated after three days of awful car- 
nage. This victory left the besiegers undisturbed, and they 
began at once to spread their front westward to complete the 
investments. Wolf Hills were the first obstacle. July 30, after 
a tremendous struggle, these were taken, a week later the line 
had been stretched all the way across the peninsula and Louisa 
Bay became a landing place for Japanese reinforcements. With 
the aid of Japanese warships a foothold was gained on the shores 
of Pigeon Bay, August 14-16, so that the Japanese lines now 
spread in a great semi-circle parallel with the outer line of the 
Russian fortifications. The investment was complete, the Rus- 
sians were within the actual fortifications, the siege had begun. 

By mid-August the Japanese were in position to attack the 
outer or secondary fortifications of Port Arthur. On the eve of 
the opening of the struggle a demand to surrender was refused 
by General Stoessel. The fighting at once developed along lines 
pursued throughout by the Japanese. The main attack centred 
upon the triple group of the fort-crowned heights, northeast of 
the city. These were the Urlungshan and Sungshushan Forts, 
and the Kikwanshan Forts, a mile and a half east of them. Be- 
sides enormously strong main forts, each was the centre of a 
complete group of strong minor forts, redoubts and protected 
trenches, and the first task of the besiegers was to silence and 
capture these vantage points. 

While this frontal attack was in progress the second task of 
the Japanese was developing. This was to drive a wedge into 
the Russian defenses eastward from Pigeon Bay toward the town, 
thus isolating the group of forts on the extremity of Liaotie- 
shan Promontory. 

The brunt of the early work fell on the artillery. The minor 
forts were fairly crumbled by the awful rain of shell. The first 
notable success was the capture of Fort Kuropatkin, September 
7. One after another of these outer positions were stormed, so 
that by September ig the Japanese believed they were in position 
to storm the main northeastern forts, in the hope of carrying 



THE SIEGE BEGUN. 495 

lunettes and protected galleries under their walls. On September 
20, aftei scaling the heights of Urlung, in the face of Urlung- 
shan, a foothold was secured there, and the siege had now 
progressed to the point when its final success or failure depended 
upon the miner and sapper rather than upon infantry. 

So also west of Port Arthur. The infantry, after furious artil- 
lery attacks, had slowly advanced there and in a score of bloody 
struggles won the foot of the slopes of 203-Metre Hill. Septem- 
ber 20j therefore, marked the beginning of a new chapter in the 
siege. The mountains around Port Arthur are of limestone, 
thinly thatched with soil. Through this Japan's sappers drove 
theii:. parallels, zigzagging up precipitous mountain sides. Their 
operations went on under a continual rain of steel and lead. Be- 
hind them crept the infantry, eager to inch on toward the crests 
that must be taken. Overhead were hurled tons of shells and 
shrapnel from Japan's artillery. The Russians ceaselessly strug- 
gled to prevent the advance, and bayonet struggles reddened 
every slope on which the contest waged. The sap work went on 
tirelessly on Kikwanshan, Urlungshan, Sungshushan and 203- 
Metre Hill throughout October and November. 

The Metre range included the main fort on 203-Metre Hill, 
two outer forts, occupying positions southeast and northeast 
from the main height, together with three supplemental forts, 
sweeping the approaches to the three chief positions. The posi- 
tion was enormously strong, naturally, and the highest engineer- 
ing skill had designed the six forts which defended it. 

The range is composed chiefly of a hard limestone with only a 
meagre soil layer. This fact added tremendously to the difficul- 
ties confronting the Japanese sappers, who were often compelled 
to blast a way through the limestone as the parallels were 
opened along the slopes of the hills. 

These parallels, or trenches, dug parallel to the outlines of the 
forts, tier after tier up the slopes, offering protection as the Jap- 
anese crept closer and closer, were but fifty vards from the outer 
works of the main forts. The attack was made by three regi- 
ments. The first dashed from the parallels in groups up to the 
Russian lines and despite terrible losses, one company eflfected 



496 PORT ARTHUR. 

a lodgement on dead ground, directly under the southeastern 
secondary fort. Here it passed the night of September 19. The 
second regiment gained the foot of the slope of 203-Metre Hill 
at II A, AL, September 20. The third attacked the southeastern 
slopes of the position. At 5 P. M., September 20, the entire 
first regiment joined its advanced company, and drove the Rus- 
sians back from the first line of trenches and at night the whole 
line was carried by an extended attack. At 10 P. M., the third 
regiment took the trenches on the southwestern slope, but next 
day was driven out by the fire of the two supporting forts, and 
retired down the hill, its ranks decimated by shrapnel. The 
Japanese had gained two footholds on the range however, which 
during October were strengthened by extensive sapping opera- 
tions which continued tirelessly until November 30, when the 
infantry assault was made. Victory here meant that by a single 
stroke a Japanese wedge would separate the northwestern group 
of forts from the Liaotieshan group, cut off the retreat of the 
Russians to Liaotieshan, where it was planned to make a last 
stand, and supply a vantage point from which the Russian fleet 
could be destroyed. 

No wonder then each Japanese fastened his eyes on Golden 
Hill and an unresistible stream of troops poured on and on. over 
ground sodden with blood, then over heaped bodies of their com- 
rades, defying death with fanatical braver}'. 203-Metre Hill was 
captured. The name will remain forever high among Japan's 
stories of the valor of her sons. The Russians, crushed, in 
retreat, left 5,000 bodies strewing the slopes of the hill. Appalled 
by what its loss meant to them, they charged again and again. 
The Japanese could not be suDplanted. 203-Metre Hill was 
theirs. Within tw^enty-four hours siege guns had been dragged 
up its bloody slopes and with mechanical precision were sending 
deadly eleven-inch shells, first among the Russian ships and then 
in every part of the fortress and against the Russian forts. The 
capture of this position sounded the doom of the entire citadel. 

After the Japanese, on November 28, began their attack on 
203-Metre Hill., the fighting became continuous. The steep and 
sandy slopes of the hill were streaked and dotted with snow 



203-METRE HILL. 497 

when the Japanese began the battle, which was aestined to fur- 
nish so many deeds of heroism that they became commonplace. 
There was so much slaughter that even Port Arthur's war-har- 
dened veterans shuddered at the sight. 

The Japanese were compelled to clamber up the slopes of the 
hill, in many cases without firing, in the face of one of the most 
murderous deluges ever poured from rifles and machine guns. 
It seemed that flesh and blood would be unable to stand the 
fire for a minute. 

The Japanese went down in squads and companies, but there 
were always others grimly coming forward. Their bravery was 
beyond praise, as was that of the Russians. Sometimes the 
fighting was hand to hand, with the muzzles of the rifles at the 
breasts of the contestants, the bayonets being used as swords. 

The sides of the hill were strewn with bodies and the snow 
was crimsoned with the blood of the wounded, some of whom 
had crawled into it, seeking in its coldness surcease for their 
dying agonies. 

Eventually, as in similar instances which were to follow^ the 
Russians retired, leaving the work of driving the enemy from 
the summit to the resistless guns of the neighboring forts, nota- 
bly those of Liaoti Mountain. 

One incident of this assault will remain forever in Russian 
history. When a Japanese standard bearer reached the summit 
and planted his flag, a gigantic Russian corporal left his retreat- 
ing comrades, and, rushing back, seized the flag, which he was 
tearing with his hands and with his teeth when he fell, pierced 
with several bullets 

When the Japanese retired under an artillery fire the Rus- 
sians re-occupied the summit. 

The second and third assaults were replicas of the first, al- 
though the second was the most ferocious, being nearly all hand- 
to-hand fighting, in which mercy was neither asked nor given. 

A remarkable incident occurred in the third assault as the 
Russians, still facing the enemy, retreated. A Japanese stand- 
ard bearer, holding his flag aloft, climbed the pinnacle and fell 
dead clutching the colors. In his tracks another arose with 



498 



PORT ARTHUR. 



the colors, only to fall instantly with a dozen wounds in his body. 
Six others followed and met the same fate. At last, when the 
ninth man appeared, a Russian officer exclaimed : 

"Don't shoot that fellow with the flag; it will be planted any- 
how." 

It was planted, and as its folds were flung out to the breezes, 
the hope of the defenders was gone. It proved only a matter of 
time that 203-Metre Hill was to mean more than slaughter and 
defeat at this one point. Disaster final and complete was the 
final outcome. 

The next step toward victory was the capture of Urlungshan 
Fort, north of Port Arthur. After many weeks of patient toil by 
a regiment of the centre division, the making of mine tunnels 
under the north wall of Urlung Mountain Fort through solid 
rock was completed and the mines laid on December 28. 

Without warning seven mines containing two tons of dynamite 
were exploded at 10 o'clock on the morning of the 28th. The 
spectacle was magnificent. The entire front walls of the fort 
seemed to be lifted into the air in a tremendous opaque curtain 
of earth and debris of all kinds. There was no preliminary bom- 
bardment to give the Russians a hint of what was in store for 
them. Half the garrison of this fort perished as the result of 
the explosions and the subsequent charge of the Japanese. 

In anticipation of a stubborn resistance by a large garrison, 
the Japanese before daylight pushed a large force into the 
trenches, where they remained concealed until the explosions 
took place. The moment the mines were fired, a whole park of 
siege guns opened a concentrated fire upon the fort which was 
obscured from view from the bursting shells. 

Under cover of this wonderful practice a large force in the 
nearest saps charged over the filled-in moat and attacked the first 
line of Russian trenches, behind which were machine guns. 

The Russians were thrown into the greatest confusion and 
many of them were killed by the explosions. Nevertheless they 
fought desperately, but were not able to withstand the number 
and determination of the Japanese, who passed over the broken 
walls "like rats, in the face of a fire from the machine guns. The 



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SUNGSHU FORT TAKEN. 5OI 

first line of trenches was captured after twenty minutes of awful 
fighting. The fort was arranged in two levels. In the lower 
level there were infantry in the trenches and upon the walls, and 
in the rear were machine-gun trenches, with a deep interior. In 
the centre of the highest level there were quick-firing guns and 
there were heavier guns in the emplacements. In the rear of the 
higher level masonry were the barracks, the magazines, and the 
kitchens of the garrison. When the Japanese captured the lower 
level in the first spirited charge they were not able to advance 
further. With splendid courage, however, the black masses of 
troops maintained their position, notwithstanding an awful con- 
centrated fire from the fortress and from artillery in the forts of 
Antse and Etz Mountains, across the gorge of the Shuishi Val- 
ley, and made a trench line from the broken walls to capture the 
machine gun trenches and the lower section of the fort . 

On December 29 after a tremendous bombardment, the Jap- 
anese infantry swarmed into the last lines of the fort's defences 
and after hours of a desperate struggle occupied the entire posi- 
tion. This victory broke the back of the defense. Within twelve 
hours the Japanese with only slight losses had taken four other 
fortified positions. One of these, Sungshu Fort, occupied a 
commanding position overlooking all of Port Arthur, the very 
key to the whole system of defense. The assault was made from 
I'^rlung, after hasting entrenching operations. Here again dyna- 
mite mines tunnelled under the powerful walls of the structure 
made breaches through which the Japanese stormed to triumph. 
The explosion buried hundreds of Russians under debris but 
despite this a desperate defense was made. Meantime, Parlung- 
shan Fort, the Chair Hill Forts and three other minor forts had 
been taken. Only isolated forts offered resistance. The Jap- 
anese, flushed with splendid victories, were eager for the attack. 
They saw a vision of the accomplishment of a task the world's 
greatest military experts had declared impossible. 

But their work was done. 

Port Arthur lay prostrate, and on Sunday, January i, 1905, 
General Stoessel, the Russian commander, sent the word across 
the lines that brought the bloody struggle to an end after eight 



502 PORT ARTHUR. 

months of the most awful warfare the world has ever known. 
Further resistance was useless, he declared, and asked General 
Nogi, the Japanese commander, to arrange a meeting when terms 
of surrender might be made. 

Marshal Yamagata, Chief of the General Staff, under orders 
from the Emperor, dispatched the following cablegram to General 
Nogi: 

"When I respectfully informed his Majesty of General Stoes- 
sel's proposal for capitulation, his Majesty was pleased to state 
that General Stoessel has rendered commendable service to his 
country in the midst of difficulties, and it is his Majesty's wish that 
military honors be shown to him." 

The following report from General Nogi told briefly of events 
leading up to this conference : 

"At 5 in the afternoon, January i, the enemy's bearer of a 
flag of truce came into the first line of our position south of 
Shuishiying and handed a letter to our officers. The same reached 
me at g o'clock at night. The letter is as follows : 

" 'Judging by the general condition of the whole line of hostile 
positions held by you, I find further resistance at Port Arthur 
useless, and for the purpose of preventing needless sacrifice of 
lives, I propose to hold negotiations with reference to capitula- 
tion. Should you consent to the same, you will please appoint 
commissioners for discussing the order and conditions regarding 
capitulation and also appoint a place for such commissioners to 
meet the same appointed by me. 

" T take this opportunity to convey to your Excellency assur- 
ances of my respect. 

" 'Stoessel." 

"Shortly after dawn to-day I will dispatch our bearer of a flag 
of truce with the following reply addressed to Stoessel : 

" 'I have the honor to reply to your proposal to hold negotia- 
tions regarding the conditions and order of capitulation. For 
this purpose I have appointed as commissioner Major General 
Ijichi, chief of staflf of our army. He will be accompanied by 
some staflf officers and civil officials. They will meet your com- 
missioners January 2, noon, at Shuishiying. The commissioners 



THE FINAL SURRRENDER. 503 

of both parties will be empowered to sign a convention for the 
capitulation without waiting for ratification, and cause the same 
to take immediate effect. Authorization for such plenary powers 
shall be signed by the highest officer of both the negotiating 
parties, and the same shall be exchanged by the respective com- 
missioners. 

** 'I avail myself of this opportunity to convey to your Excel- 
lency assurances of my respect. 

" 'NOGI.' " 

Commissioners of the two armies met, January 2, and agreed 
to the terms. On January 3 the Japanese Rising Sun flag was 
flung out over Russia's erstwhile Gibraltar of the East. On 
January 5, the Russian officers, bearing side arms and with fr.U 
honors of war, gave their parole and left the fortress, free to ro 
where they would. Twenty-five thousand prisoners of war, non- 
commissioned officers and privates, remained. Of these, 20,000 
were in hospitals, so enormous had been the proportion of the 
garrison victims of wounds or disease. The terms of capitulat'on 
were these : 

"Article i. All Russian soldiers, marines, volunteers, also 
Government officials at the garrison and harbor of Port Arthur, 
are taken prisoners. 

"Article 2. All forts, batteries, warships, other ships and 
boats, arms, ammunition, horses, all materials for hostile use. 
Government buildings and all objects belonging to the Russian 
Government shall be transferred to the Japanese army in their 
existing condition. 

"Article 3. On the preceding two conditions being assented 
to, as a guarantee for the fulfilment thereof the men garrisoning 
the forts and the batteries on Itzeshan, Sungshushan, Antzeshan 
and the line of eminences southeast therefrom shall be removed 
by noon of January 3, and the same shall be transferred to the 
Japanese army. 

"Article 4. Should Russian military or naval men be deemed 
to have destroyed objects named in Article 2, or to have caused 
alteration in any way in their condition at the existing time, the 
signing of this compact and the negotiations shall be annulled, 
and the Japanese army will, take free action. 



504' PORt ARTttUS. 

"Article 5. The Russian military and naval authorities shall 
prepare and transfer to the Japanese army a table showing the 
fortifications of Port Arthur and their respective positions, and 
maps showing the location of mines, underground and submarine, 
and all other dangerous objects; also, a table showing the corn- 
position and system of the army and naval services at Port 
Arthur; a list of army and navy officers, with names, rank and 
duties of said officers ; a list of army steamers, warships and 
other ships, with the numbers of their respective crews; a list of 
civilians, showmg the number of men and women, their race and 
occupations. 

"Article 6. Arms, including those carried on the person ; am- 
munition, war materials. Government buildings, objects owned by 
the Government, horses, warships and other ships, including their 
contents, excepting private property, shall be left in their present 
positions, and the commissioners of the Russian and Japanese 
armies shall decide upon the method of their transference. 

"Article 7. The Japanese army, considering the gallant resist- 
ance offered by the Russian army as being honorable, will permit 
the officers of the Russian army and navy, as well as officials be- 
longing thereto, to carry swords and take with them private prop- 
erty directly necessary for the maintenance of life. The pre- 
viously mentioned officers, officials and volunteers who will sign 
a written parole pledging that they will not take up arms and in 
nowise take action contrary to the interests of the Japanese army 
until the close of the war, will receive the consent of the Japanese 
army to return to their country. Each army and navy officer 
will be allowed one servant, and such servant will be specially 
released on signing the parole. 

"Article 8. Noncommissioned officers and privates of both 
army and navy and volunteers shall wear their uniforms, and, 
taking portable tents and necessary private property, and com- 
manded by their respective officers, shall assemble at such places 
as may be indicated by the Japanese army. The Japanese com- 
missioners will indicate the necessary details therefor. 

"Article 9. The sanitary corps and the accountants belonging 
to the Russian army and navy shall be retained by the Japanese 



TERMS OF SURRENDER. 505 

while their services are deemed necessary for the caring for sick 
and wounded prisoners. During such time such corps shall be 
required to render service under the direction of the sanitary 
corps and accountants of the Japanese army. 

"Article lo. The treatment to be accorded to the residents, 
the transfer of books and documents relating to municipal admin- 
istration and finance, and also details found necessary for the 
enforcement of this compact, shall be embodied in a supplementary 
compact. The supplementary compact shall have the same force 
as this compact. 

"Article ii. One copy each of this compact shall be prepared 
for the Japanese and Russian armies, and it shall have immediate 
effect upon signature thereof." 

No more pathetic incident of the capitulation will go down to 
history than the final message to the Tsar from General Stoessel. 
On December 31, he decided further resistance useless. Thus he 
broke the news to his Emperor : 

"We shall be obliged to capitulate, but everything is in the 
hands of God. We have suffered fearful losses. 

"Great sovereign, pardon us. We have done everything 
humanly possible. Judge us, but be merciful. Nearly eleven 
months of uninterrupted struggles have exhausted us. Only one- 
quarter of the garrison is alive, and of this number the majority 
are sick, and, being obliged to act on the defensive without even 
short intervals for repose, are worn to shadows." 

Within the fortress the Japanese found 48,000 survivors. Of 
these, as has been said, 25,000 were fighting men. Japan freely 
gave liberty to all who had not shared in the fighting. No vast 
booty fell to the victors. The city had practically been destroyed. 
Not a public building remained. The Russian fleet, shell riddled, 
lay at the bottom of the harbor. Docks, wharves and equipment 
were destroyed either by the Japanese shellfire or by the Russians 
themselves. Eighty thousand tons of coal was the most valuable 
trophy, so completely had war accomplished the work of destruc- 
tion. Japan's moral and political victory was enormous. The 
whole future of the Orient was involved when the Russian flag 

was hauled down. 

28 



5o6 PORT ARTHUR. 

All Japan rejoiced at news of the victory. Fifty thousand 
of their countrymen had given their lives to this end. The whole 
nation joyously shouted its "banzais" counting even this great 
cost not too dear for the triumph that had ended the memorable 
siege of Port Arthur. 

All great battles become associated with the personality of the 
commanders. Thus Grant defeated Lee, we hear, and Welling- 
ton crushed Napoleon. The taking of Port Arthur enters the 
pages of history as the achievement of Nogi. Few great chief- 
tains of all time have accomplished what this intrepid Japanese 
commander achieved. Certainly no greater or more difficult 
problem ever confronted a soldier than the reduction of a fortress 
defended by every possible modern appliance of war devised by 
man, these only supplementing natural defences not equalled 
around any fortified city the world over. Gibraltar is perhaps 
less accessible, ofifering less field for attack, but would fall far 
more readily than a Port Arthur surrounded by fifty cunningly 
devised forts crowning as many bare, steep eminences. 

General Nogi commanded the entire operations from the in- 
vestment to the surrender of the fortress. His armv originally 
was associated with those of Generals Oku and Nodzu until 
after the battle of Nanshan Hill, when the Russian relief force 
was driven northward. At that moment the Port Arthur campaign 
became entirely independent. Generals Oku and Nodzu pursued 
the Russians northward, joining forces with General Knroki to 
prevent any interference with Nogi at Port Arthur. As these 
forces moved northward into Manchuria, Nogi moved south- 
ward with his army, then numbering 50^000 men and subse- 
quently increased by reinforcements landing at Dalny, to 90,000 
men. He directed the investment, completed May 5, 1904, and 
in co-operation with the Council of War, his was the master 
mind that planned the details of the attack, chose the vulnerable 
points in the Russian defences, and ordered the incessant batter- 
ing by artillery, sapping by miners, charges by infantry that 
ultimately made his name imperishable as the victor in the siege 
and capture. For 242 days of unceasing activity Nogi overlooked 
no detail of the struggle. In the ranks he became an idol. His 



GENERAL NOGI. 507 

name, his iron personality, his unconquerable spirit, united to 
inspire gunners and troops, and, as the Russians testified, caused 
tens of thousands to fall, with eyes still bent on Golden Hill, the 
point they would not be denied. 

General. Nogi is of the Saumaurai, that warlike clan of Japan 
which for centuries supplied the nation's fighting men. He won 
distinction in the Japanese revolution, and in the Chinese- Japa- 
nese war, and was well chosen for the great and crowning task, 
to take Port Arthur. With him went two sons into the war. 
The elder died in the tremendous struggle when Nanshan Hill 
was taken, the prelude to the capture of Port Arthur. The 
younger fell in the capture of 203-Metre Hill, the culminating 
event of the siege. With a stoicism characteristic of the Japa- 
nese, General Nogi received the news of the loss of these youth- 
ful heroes. "I am proud," he said, "that they died so well." 

In the purely administrative duties devolving upon General 
Nogi, on the surrender of the fortress he manifested abilities only 
second to his skill as a soldier. The exchange of Russian posses- 
sions there went on with order and dispatch ; prisoners were well 
cared for ; the hospitals were soon under Japan's efficient medical 
corps ; a rigorous government was organized and quickly brought 
order out of chaos, and indeed in every department was mani- 
fest the working of a master. Imperturbable, with ability 
amounting to military genius, tireless, indomitable, and, above 
all, chivalrous and fearless, in General Nogi Japan contributes 
a man and a name well worthy a place in the roster of the world's 
conquerors. 



RD-181 








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